“The Next 500 Years”: Mapping Anti-Colonial, Abolitionist Futures

• In Event: Entanglements of Empire: Blackness, Indigeneity, and the (Un)making of Carceral-Colonial Space

Abstract

The 1992 International Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nations in the U.S., held in Yelamu, unceded Muwekma Ohlone territory (San Francisco, CA), was organized by the American Indian Movement in coalition with Black, Chicanx, Puerto Rican, and feminist organizations, in addition to political prisoners and prisoners of war. It interrupted the city’s quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day, rejected the validity of the U.S. nation-state, and crafted a vision for the “next 500 years.” Drawing from archival materials, I examine the ways this coalitional moment re-mapped the SF Bay Area to practice and imagine counter-carceral, anti-colonial futures.

Presenter

• Savannah J. Kilner, University of California, Los Angeles