The Oklahoma Centennial

This year the state of Oklahoma celebrates its 100th anniversary, with dances, theater productions, anniversary publications, and other festive activites. However, not everyone in the Sooner state will be celebrating.

One person who will not be taking part in this year's celebration is Lettie Harjo Randall who, as a young child was taken from her Creek (Muscogee) family and sent to a boarding school. As with all of the boarding schools, students' behavior was tightly controlled, militarily regimented; they were forbidden from speaking their native languages, and were entirely isolated from their families. Now almost 70 years old, Randall and many other Oklahoma Indians beleived that their shared history is being subsumed by a celebration of Boomers and Sooners. Members of various tribes plan to "celebrate" the centennial by marching on the state capital in Oklahoma City. The planned marched is designed to raise awareness about the plight of Indian people who call the state home; who had many promises made to them and every one of them was broken.

Some tribes, most notably the Chickasaw, are sponsoring events that conincide with centennial celebrations, most tribes have no organized plans to commenmorate what they see as a continued assault on their tribal cultures and a celebration of their forced removal from their homelands.

A Change in Direction

I have left this blog to sit and practically vegetate! I have been remiss with my posts and there is a reason for that. I have decided to change the direction of the blog and rather than use it as a sounding board or discussion, I would like to use it as place to bring you news from Indian Country. An online spot to get some of the most important stories of the day from a vareity of news outlets. All posts will remain Indian related. Also, I am going to open the blog and make it public. Since many of you who were involved in the private blog remained quite, I think this is an opportunity to increase the discussion and information going on around the world concerning Indian affairs.

To those of you who have been with me since our SLOW start, thank you--please keep reading and commenting. For those of you who will be checking this out for the first time, welcome.