What is life in the United States like for its first people? What can America achieve when we honor both Native and Western wisdom? Join Friends of Mimosa for the first meeting of Books for the Beloved Community on November 17th. We will focus on “An Indigenous Point of View” with two books by Native American authors in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day October 10, 2022, and Native American Heritage Month in November.
We’re reading:
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples. Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted the expansion of the US empire. Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers.
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. Only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth and learning to give our own gifts in return.
These books are available at the Fulton County library and at booksellers. Start reading now! For more information, contact Stefanie Dye at stefanie@friendsofmimosa.org.