As you bow your heads over the bounty of food and feel the intimate embrace of family and friends, take a moment to remember….

“The “idea” of Thanksgiving is a wonderful one…and we should be thankful each and everyday. But while we are celebrating our abundance today….we should pause for at least a moment of reflection and understanding.

Did you know that November is Native American Heritage Month? We don’t hear much about it in our media. Do you also know that following the passage of the new U.S. government’s “Indian Removal Act of 1830, (first proposed by Pres. George Washington), on November 1, 1831 the “Trail of Tears”, commenced? We should be teaching our children the truth…not what I call the “pilgrim propaganda.” Perhaps the pilgrim story happened…once. But it is not the true history or legacy of the relationship between the settlers and the Native American people.

Beginning in 1831, thousands of Native American families, some African-Americans, (usually as slaves, but also, some as “maroons”, or escaped slaves), were forcibly removed from their homes, their native lands…from their very lives. With their belongings in wagons, and on their backs, they walked…and were subject to a forced “relocation”, from the area that is now the states of Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, to what is now the state of Oklahoma, and the surrounding area.

Daily food rations along the way, consisted of a handful of boiled corn, one turnip, and two cups of heated water. Many thousands of these proud and ancient people died on the journey…of starvation, exposure, and disease, and I am sure, “heartbreak”, as they faced this forced “cultural transformation”. One group, led by an incompetent guide was forever lost in the Lake Providence swamps. The “Trail of Tears” became the model for many more of these horrendous “removals”, and subsequent relocation movements. The suffering of all those who endured, as well as those who were not able to endure, should be remembered today.”