In 1984, 20 cyclists from the Cherokee Nation completed a cycling pilgrimage on the 950-mile Trail of Tears where Cherokee citizens were forced from their capital city, New Echota, Georgia and marched to Tahlequah, Oklahoma. 4,000 of the 14,000 Cherokee people died from that forced march. Twenty-five years after that inaugural ride, the Cherokee Nation Education Department saw that one-time ride as opportunity to develop leadership skills and confidence in Cherokee youth. In 2009, the Remember the Removal Bike Ride became an annual pilgrimage.

Pedal Pilgrim and the Remembering the Removal organization (sponsored by the Cherokee Nation) are now working together in a partnership to provide accommodations for the Cherokee riders on the annual pilgrimage and develop pilgrimage opportunities for non-Cherokee people to also remember the removal as part of a cultural lament as we seek healing and reconciliation from the historic damage caused by people, policies and attitudes reflecting colonialism.

Specifically, Pedal Pilgrim is reaching out to churches along the route who can first provide overnight accommodations for the annual Cherokee Remember the Removal Ride. Those churches will be able to support the riders as well as hear about the ride and its history and impact from the riders themselves. Those churches will then be invited and encouraged to provide that same space and level of support for other pilgrims who feel called to cycle the Trail of Tears as part of their education, lament and contribution to healing and reconciliation in our culture.

Ravin Girty, a 2017 cyclist, writes, “You don’t come out of the ride the same way you were before the ride. You are going to change in some way…..You see things that will break your heart. You see fields and fields of mass burials. You pass by areas that will have plaques that will tell you who passed away there. You learn stuff you had never been taught before, and it really hits home.”