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Kyle T. Mays is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Illinois. He is working on his dissertation entitled, And We Shall Remain: Reclaiming Detroit as an Indigenous Space, 1837-1994. It is a cultural and social history of how Indigenous peoples and presences were instrumental in the construction of modern Detroit. While attending Michigan State University, he coordinated Dr. Geneva Smitherman’s My Brother’s Keeper Mentoring program for young Black men from Detroit, Michigan. Although trained as a historian, Kyle considers his work transdisciplinary. He is interested in not only historical questions, but also those that pertain to the contemporary lives of youth. His work intersects with the fields of Afro-Native studies, urban history/studies, language and literacy studies, and Hip Hop studies.