Skip to content

Telling the Wampanoag Story: Writing Race to the Truth in Troubled Times

Join Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag) as she discusses her ground-breaking Young Adult book, Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, part of the Race to the Truth Series published by Penguin Random House that seeks to correct some of the long-standing myths about American history. The book has attracted many readers for its compelling story of a young girl’s life in a Wampanoag family and community long before any contact with Europeans. This is juxtaposed in the following chapters with documented accounts of European exploration, settlement, the institution of colonization, as well as its many impacts, which carry through to the present day. The book has also attracted controversy, including a book ban in Texas. Coombs will discuss her work with the Wampanoag scholar Joyce Rain Anderson as part of the broader project of Native American revitalization.

Linda Coombs is a citizen of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe of Martha’s Vineyard, and has lived in Mashpee with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe for than 48 years. Her two grandchildren are enrolled with the Mashpee tribe, as was their father and grandfather. She has worked as a museum educator for 51 years, spending 11 years at the Boston Children’s Museum, 30 years in the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation, and 9 years at the Aquinnah Cultural Center, a small house museum dedicated to the Aquinnah Wampanoag. She has been an interpreter, an artisan, a researcher; led workshops and teacher institutes; written children’s stories and articles on various aspects of Wampanoag history and culture; and developed and worked on all aspects of a wide variety of exhibits. In 2023, her book Colonization and the Wampanoag Story was published. The goal of all her work remains the communication of accurate and appropriate representations about the history, cultures, and people of the Wampanoag and other Indigenous nations.

Joyce Rain Anderson is a professor of rhetoric and composition at Bridgewater State University, where she directs the Native American and Indigenous Studies program.  She has published widely on cultural rhetorics and Indigenous pedagogy.

 

Co-sponsored by the Concord Free Public Library. Register for the IN PERSON event at Concord Free Public Library

  • 00

    days

  • 00

    hours

  • 00

    minutes

  • 00

    seconds

Date

Sep 28 2025

Time

2:00 am - 3:30 pm

More Info

Register

Location

Concord Free Public Library
129 Main Street, Concord MA 01742
Register

The Thoreau Society Bulletin is a 20-page newsletter with bibliographic information and writings on the life, works, and legacy of Henry Thoreau.

Each issue features news, upcoming events, and announcements from the Society, along with original short articles on new discoveries in and about the world of Thoreau, his contemporaries and related topics. It also contains a Notes & Queries section and a President’s Column, as well as additions to the Thoreau Bibliography and reviews of new literature relevant to the field. Edited by Brent Ranalli.

The Thoreau Society Bulletin is mailed to each member on a quarterly basis as a benefit of membership.

Membership includes a subscription to the annual journal.

BECOME A MEMBER

The Concord Saunterer is a valuable aid to studies of Thoreau.” — Harold Bloom, Yale University

The Concord Saunterer: A Journal of Thoreau Studies is an annual peer-reviewed journal of Thoreau scholarship that features in-depth essays about Thoreau, his times and his contemporaries, and his influence today. Membership includes a subscription to the annual journal.

BECOME A MEMBER

Get news from the Thoreau Society and learn about ways you can help preserve Thoreau Country as part of our common heritage and as the embodiment of Thoreau’s landmark contributions to social, political, and environmental thought.

The Thoreau Society®, Inc.
341 Virginia Road, Concord, MA 01742
P: (978) 369-5310
F: (978) 369-5382
E:  info@thoreausociety.org

Educating people about the life, works, and legacy of Henry David Thoreau, challenging all to live a deliberate, considered life—since 1941.

blank
blank
blank

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Back To Top