Redacted Roots: Race, Records, and the Invention of “Colored” America

by Mark Perkins

Redacted Race, Records, and the Invention of “Colored” America is a groundbreaking investigation into how American law, policy, and paperwork were used to erase the identities of Black American Indians and other reclassified peoples. Tracing centuries of racial manipulation—from forced migration and kinship blending to the legal invention of categories like “Negro” and “Colored”—this book reveals how land, lineage, and tribal belonging were deliberately overwritten. With archival receipts, oral histories, and scholarly clarity, Mark Anthony Perkins delivers a powerful the truth was never lost—only redacted.

146 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 27, 2025