Lenoir-Rhyne University will host a free public program about the Trail of Tears on Friday. Area teachers are especially invited to attend.
Scholar and author Amy H. Sturgis will present "I Take My Life in My Hand: A Tale of Two Cherokees and the Trail of Tears." The event will begin at 8 p.m. in the Belk Centrum on campus.
The presentation will focus on the unique personal stories of two Cherokees — from the careers they pursued to the women they loved. These stories will offer fresh insights into the Trail of Tears, when the Cherokees were forcibly removed in 1-838 from their homeland in western North Carolina to what is now Oklahoma.
The two men, once mentor and student, strove to defend their people in vastly different ways as the threat of removal loomed large. They shared a common goal: to preserve Cherokee lives and land. But the methods they chose made them into enemies. The impossible choices they were forced to make cost one man his country and the other his life, while creating a lasting split in the Cherokee Nation.
A fictionalized version of the Trail of Tears story is told in the novels "Thirteen Moons" by Charles Frazier, "Pushing the Bear" by Diane Glancy and "Mountain Windsong" by Robert J. Conley.
Sturgis will recount the true story through a lecture and accompanying PowerPoint multimedia presentation including portraits, photographs and paintings. Sturgis is the wife of Dr. Larry Hall, Lenoir-Rhyne provost.
She has published several books about Native American history and heritage. Her books will be available at Friday's event.
Sturgis is currently serving as adjunct assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. For more information about the speaker, go to www.amyhsturgis.
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