This Land Is Their Land by David J. Silverman

Merits: David J. Silverman is a professor at George Washington University. He specializes in Native American, Colonial American, and American racial history. He has authored several works and his essays have won awards from the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the New York Academy of History.

Material: This book views the founding of the Plymouth colony and the visit of the Wampanoag sachem (chief) Ousamequin (Massasoit) and his men to the “First Thanksgiving”. Kumbaya? According to the Texas school system, yes. According to history? No. Find out more about why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving and learn about the events that led to the creation and subsequent violent dissolution of an uneasy alliance.

Grade: Black Jesus. This is not the lovely neighborhood barbecue story we grew up with in grade school. This book calls out the fact that Thanksgiving is a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States. It shows that, as a multi-cultural nation, maybe it’s time to rethink our popular retelling of the history of Thanksgiving.