Cherokee Event Draws 100,000

The Cherokee Nation is marking the 71st Annual Cherokee National Holiday this weekend with a plethora of scheduled events encompassing culture, entertainment, and athletics at over 30 sites in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation.

This holiday garners attendance from over 100,000 individuals worldwide, making it the tribe’s most prominent event of the year.

The Cherokee National Holiday, celebrated each Labor Day Weekend, honors the initial signing of the 1839 Cherokee Constitution on September 6, 1839.

Since 1953, the Cherokee Nation has marked the Cherokee National Holiday each year with a specific theme. The theme for this year is “Building our Nation, Strengthening our Sovereignty,” aimed at recognizing the Cherokee Nation as a sovereign entity and asserting that the Cherokees, as a traditional people, are propelling progress in today’s world through their strength.

As stated by Taralee Montgomery, the Cherokee Nation’s Deputy Secretary of State, at the 2023 State of the Nation Address on Saturday, “We will continue to set the course for the brightest future for our tribe and its citizens. The work of our ancestors means that today we have more to celebrate than ever before.”

Being the most populous federally recognized tribe in Indian Country, the Cherokee Nation boasts over 460,000 enrolled tribal citizens. During the event, tribal leaders informed the Nation about recent investments made in various sectors including healthcare, education, law enforcement, and housing.

Chuck Hoskin, Jr., Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, articulated during Saturday’s State of the Nation Address, “We stand today as a nation meeting its responsibilities as a government, asserting our rights, but always looking to do more and go further. From an expanding criminal justice system, to protecting our most vulnerable citizens, to exercising our rights to hunt, fish and gather, to leveraging our strength to build up our economy, today we are realizing so many of the dreams of our ancestors.”

In the spring of last year, the Cherokee Nation initiated construction on a $400 million hospital in Tahlequah, comprising six stories. Once completed, the facility will occupy 400,000 square feet, housing 127 beds, a rooftop helipad, and offering expanded services to Cherokee and Native citizens from other federally recognized tribes.

Additionally, the Nation inaugurated its inaugural meat company, the 1839 Meat Company, in the previous year, which supplies locally sourced food to elderly and needy Cherokee families. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Cherokee Nation pledged to allocate $10 million over a trio of years to nourish a larger segment of the population in the vicinity.

Hoskin stated, “That includes meat from our own meat processing plant,” adding, “That, my fellow Cherokees, is food sovereignty in action,”

The Cherokee National Holiday Parade on Saturday afternoon encompassed a two-hour cavalcade, featuring local Cherokee Nation luminaries and royalty, guest tribal leaders and royalty, such as the Eastern Band of Cherokee, assorted businesses, organizations, and community departments, high school musical ensembles, and other notable individuals.

The procession also showcased several other esteemed individuals from the Cherokee Nation, including participants of the “Remember the Removal Bike Ride.” This group consisted of ten Cherokee cyclists who embarked on a 950-mile expedition, retracing the northern path of the Trail of Tears to honor their forebears, who were coercively displaced from their native territories in the southeastern U.S. over 180 years ago, in May 1838.