Fifty years ago, the Cherokee Nation set aside Labor Day Weekend
to celebrate the signing of our Constitution on Sept. 6, 1839, which
reunited the Cherokee Nation after it had been split in two by federal
policy. Since the first holiday 50 years ago, we have reconstituted our
government and grown stronger as a nation, exercising our sovereignty
in hundreds of ways. Some of the most recent and visible signs of our
sovereignty are our Cherokee Nation car tags and a new constitutional
amendment, which you, the Cherokee people, will be asked to vote
upon, which will remove the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the approval
process of our constitution.
But with the gains over the past 50 years, we have also experienced some
losses. Our language is spoken less frequently, and our core Cherokee
communities need support to remain distinct. To keep our culture strong,
the Cherokee Nation has focused even more on serving those communities.
The largest portion of our car tag money goes to our Cherokee children's
schools. We are helping grass-roots groups construct their own community
buildings, designed by the people in those communities to suit their needs.
We are funding community fitness centers in places like Kansas, Greasy
and Bell. We have begun a cultural revival, with children from the
pre-school age on up, speaking and singing Cherokee. Our Cherokee
National Children's Choir has performed at the Ground Zero site in New
York City, sharing the Cherokee song for children who have lost their
parents, "Orphan Child," with suffering New Yorkers.
I invite every Cherokee, whether they live near our capital here in
Tahlequah, out of state or even overseas, to join us as we celebrate the
50th Cherokee National Holiday this Aug. 30 to Sept. 1. This is an occasion
to see old friends and make new ones, but most importantly, to celebrate
our strength as a people and a culture. More than 450 years after first
contact with Europeans, almost 300 years after our first international
treaty, more than 160 years after the Trail of Tears, nearly 100 since
Oklahoma statehood, the Cherokee Nation is still strong, vibrant, growing
and changing. That was worth celebrating half a century ago. Today, it is
even more so.
