C-Seg; Ground Blessing for OKC American Indian Cultural Center

Representatives from the 39 federally recognized tribes of Oklahoma, political dignitaries, educators, and students of all ages came together on Wednesday for ground-blessing ceremonies where the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum will be built. KGOU's Susan Shannon attended the event and has this report. Within view of downtown Oklahoma City and of I-35 and I-40, the ceremonies began at sunrise and went throughout the day until after the sun went down. Gina Howard is deputy director of the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority which oversaw the development of the future museum and organized the day's activities. We thought that culturally and spiritually the site needed a ground-blessing. It's been neglected for a long time in the 30s it was an oil filled and it's gone through periods of neglect and now periods of healing. How are the tribal elders and tribes that you invited to be here? We invited all tribes and to send representatives of their tribes just looking around today. From Sun up to Muscogee people were here to help to prepare our fire.

The Oto war mothers are here. We have tribal leaders here. We have youth. We have the Chataola language program, our Chakta language program. The Chickasaw Nation children's choir will be here. We have many dancers and all the tribal royalties so as you can see there's everyone from our elders to our youth representing all tribes and community. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the different aspects of the museum. Right now we're still we're going into design development so we still have a little bit of the design left to do but what I can say is it will be 125,000 square foot facility for short-term and long-term exhibitions here on 300 acres and so it will be kind of a fusion of earth architecture, meeting a very progressive building architecture but nonetheless architecture that is really focused on traditional building concepts of native peoples. So it'll be an Indian place. As for the exhibits, our major themes throughout the cultural center, memory, you know our experiences, our past, sovereignty, you know our sense of natural democracy

and the rights we have to make around laws and to be ruled by them and our gatherings of pride, how our community comes together and how we have fellowship with one another as Indian people. It is our hope we have a Discovery Learning Center where we would have an extensive archive educational materials including materials supporting film and production. Plans for the Museum began in 1994 when then-state senator Kelly Haney co-authored legislation to promote awareness of Oklahoma's original peoples. Haney is now chief of the Seminole Nation. He says the cultural center presents tribes with a unique opportunity. The content that are being placed into the cultural center are as a result of meeting with hundreds of native people across the state to say this is your cultural center it's your time to tell your story what do you want to say then it's designed to tell the story of the native people from their eyes. Amongst the many speakers of the evening

first lady Kim Henry spoke of how the histories of all Oklahoma's were intertwined. It was never more apparent than by the display of Oklahoma notables on the dayus. Current and past governors Oklahoma City mayors tribal chiefs and congressmen all coming together in a historic moment that hopefully ensures that the past present and future of the Oklahoma tribes have a place within the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum. For KGOU News I'm Susan Shannon.