Trail of Tears, Trail of Healing

Announcement

Last year, as I began envisioning this Pedal Pilgrim work I imagined focusing on the Oregon Coast Trail and the Lewis and Clark Trail as potential model projects where churches could provide accommodations to pilgrims along some of the 175,000 miles of designated routes in America. Over the past six months I have been in conversation with a a member of the Cherokee Nation who also acts as the liaison to the Remember the Removal Bike Ride organization.

The Oregon Coast Trail already has two churches providing hospitality to cyclists and pilgrims and I will remain available to work with churches along that 350-mile route as we build the momentum for a pilgrimage route along the coast. However, the Remember the Removal Bike Ride organization and Pedal Pilgrim have decided to officially partner with each other and I will be focusing my energy on this over the next year, possibly more.

Below is a copy of the link to this project that can be found on my website here. I am delighted to be working with this Cherokee Nation organization as we seek to heal the painful historic wounds of our collective past.

The Trail of Tears

“Remembering the Removal”

Pilgrimage Project

Photo courtesy of the Cherokee Phoenix

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 Cherokee 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.”

Photo Courtesy of the Cherokee Phoenix