Two rampaging squirrels break the silence of the thick forest as our group of 30 walk on a road made from tens of thousands of hand-laid bricks recovered from a landfill.
Ahead of us, on the crest of the road, stood another group. Under a canopy of long-leaf pines and hardwood trees was an old woman in a wheelchair, a young girl, three adult women, a boy, two young men, and Marcus Briggs-Cloud, who I had only met virtually before. All were wearing clothing incorporating multi-colored Maskoke patterns.
The two young Maskoke men held their two-foot-long wooden stickball sticks in front of our group, gently enforcing an invisible barrier. Across the gap between our groups, Marcus gave a traditional welcome speech in the Maskoke language for 10 minutes. Then we were asked to state the intentions behind our presence on their land.
Nearly two centuries after many of their ancestors were displaced from their native homelands in the southern United States, a group of Native Americans is preserving their language and traditions in a unique community in Alabama.
A timely and sometimes painful discussion on the impact of COVID-19 and racism on Native Americans ended on a hopeful note Tuesday, with a panelist invoking an image from nature.
