Join Africana Studies Department and the award-winning author and educator Dr. Shonda Buchanan in an enriching discussion around her memoir, Black Indian and the migration journeys from the Southeast to the Midwest of African Americans who met, married and made relatives with North American Indians. This story is the true tapestry of America.

Shonda Buchanan

Oxfam Ambassador Shonda Buchanan is the author of six books, including The Lost Songs of Nina Simone and the award-winning memoir Black Indian, chosen by PBS NewsHour as a “Top 20 books to read to learn about institutional racism.” Associate Professor in the Department of English at Western Michigan University and faculty in Alma College's MFA Program in Creative Writing, Shonda is published in The Mississippi Review, The International Review of African American Art, Tab Review, Red Ink Review, Urban Voices: 51 Poems from 51 American Poets, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, Art Meets Literature: An Undying Love Affair, Phati’tude Literary Magazine, Red Ink, Strange Cargo: An Emerging Voices Anthology, Step into a World: A Global Anthology of New Black Literature, Arise! Magazine, Def Jam Poetry’s Bum Rush the Page, Geography of Rage: Remembering the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, Rivendell, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, Indian Country Today, Capital & Main, Westways Magazine, Sisters of AARP and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Thrice Pushcart Prize nominee, a Best of the Net nominee and a California Arts Council Established Artist Fellow, Shonda is a USC Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities Fellow and a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Department of Cultural Affairs Master Artist Fellow. Board member of the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival and the Kalamazoo Arts Council, Shonda is also the recipient of a Brody Arts Fellowship from the California Community Foundation, a Big Read grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and several Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grants. An English Language Specialist for the Department of State and PEN Emerging Voices Fellow and Mentor, and a Sundance Institute Writing Arts Fellow, Shonda’s works-in-progress are America's Bloodflowers and Children of the Mixed Blood Trail. Descendant of the Mende African nation of Sierra Leone and the West African region, and the Coharie, Choctaw and Eastern Band Cherokee North American nations, and Europeans, Shonda lives and writes in the Midwest on Ojibwe (Anishinaabe), Ottawa and Potawatomi lands. For more information, visit www.shondabuchanan.com.

The lecture will be preceded by a light reception at 2:30pm.

This lecture is supported by the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, Denbo Humanities Center and the Departments of History, English and Woman and Gender Studies

Funding for the McClung Museum’s educational programming has been provided by the Knox County Tourism Consortium.