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TAHLEQUAH, OK - In preparation for their upcoming Trail of Tears Terminus Exhibit, the Cherokee Heritage Center is under major reconstruction. The entrance has been moved to the building’s west side, the primary exhibition space has been gutted and is being renovated, and fabricators and construction crews are hard at work preparing for the exhibit’s May 12 opening.

Initial planning meetings began in 1998, after Congress passed legislation allocating funds to establish interpretive exhibits at the beginning and end of the Trail of Tears. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina, houses the former; the Cherokee Heritage Center was chosen as the site for the latter. Museum staff and the design team have since held numerous meetings with representatives from the other Five Tribes, Cherokee elders, scholars, and other interested individuals to determine the exhibit’s content.

The exhibit, a joint project with the National Park Service and the Cherokee Nation, focuses primarily on the events leading up to, during, and after the forced removal of the Cherokee from their eastern home to Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma. Attention will also be given to the Chickasaw, (Muscogee) Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes, and the move’s impact on them. As a means of commemorating the Trail, the Cherokee Heritage Center is constructing a memorial bead wall.

Members of the community, Cherokee Heritage Center staff and volunteers, and many others have helped make the clay beads that will stand for those who came to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. White will represent those who completed the journey, black for those who died, and red will symbolize those whose fate could not be determined.

One of the exhibit’s primary positions, one that tribal people and scholars alike have wanted expressed since the original meetings, is that this removal was a terrible injustice to the Indian Nations. "But one of the most often heard phrases," stresses Executive Director Mary Ellen Meredith, "was that the Cherokee want everyone to know that we are not victims. We are still here and we are thriving."

The exhibit opens May 12, with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Opening ceremonies are sponsored by Texaco.