Arguing that Philadelphia is an underutilized site in the history of Indigenous people in the 20^th century, I center the city and its urban Indian center to probe how Native peoples defined themselves at this moment of cultural change. Here, I deploy a broad understanding of performance to include activities such as dance, lectures, court trails, marches, etc., to interrogate the variety of ways indigeneity was debated, enacted, and acknowledged.

These performances brought together racial and white ethnic minorities, including Indigenous people in a variety of spaces. Taken together, I ask how what models of Indigenous identity developed following the 1960s and how did they compete with or speak to other developing racial, ethnic, and national identities. I trace key moments when these competing ideas of indigeneity pressed up against each other and ask how this group of urban Indians carved a space for themselves in the city and develop a sense of identity while contributing to shifting local understandings of Native peoples? Taking a counter-colonial approach of traditional archives alongside the incorporation of Indigenous archives and epistemologies, it is my hope that we may reclaim the histories of the settler city and reimagine the Mid-Atlantic region as a site of Indigenous life, growth, and possibility.