Sam Hitchmough is a Senior Lecturer in American Indian History at the University of Bristol. He researches and teaches Native American and African American history. He is particularly interested in the rhetoric, ideologies and strategies of the Red Power movement and have recently published an article, 'Performative Protest and the Lost Contours of Red Power,' that explores the ways in which activists used sites of national memory as well as dark humour to offer counter-narratives. I have also explored this relationship between protest, patriotism and national narratives in research on Native American resistance to Columbus Day parades in Denver. He is currently working on one project to do with representations of Native American women in popular culture, and another to do with Red Power activism in the 1980s-present.
Over the summer, statues of Christopher Columbus have been beheaded, covered with red paint, lassoed around the head and pulled down, set on fire and thrown into a lake. Many of these protests have been led by Native American activists. But other statues have been defended by people with guns. A statue of Columbus in […]
