The Story You're about to hear is one that spans hundreds of years it is a tale of Life of new beginnings and near demise of warfare and peace it is the rise and fall of past civilizations it is a story of people who lived here long before for us today we know them as the porch Band of Creek Indians a federally recognized Sovereign Nation with their own system of government and bylaws their own police and fire department as well as a complete Health Care system for tribal members the porch Band
of Creek Indians has a proud and distinct culture their people have passed down from generation to generation today this Sovereign Nation is an integral economic part of the state of Alabama providing many jobs to alabamians throughout their multiple business ventures but there is a part of their story that was steeped in a struggle for survival and a battle to reclaim their lost culture this is the story of The Forgotten Creeks well the history of the Creek Nation really begins with the history
of Native Americans in this part of the world and for that matter the new world as it was called by the Europeans and U it basically begins believe it or not back at uh uh in Alabama we have the best archaeological evidence of the first humans Native Americans first Americans sometimes they're called uh a 10,500 BC around 12,000 years ago The Creeks are descendants of mound building cultures from before European contact the Creek Nation was one of the largest and most powerful native nations in
the Southeast controlling present day states of Alabama Georgia and Florida who would have thought that here in Alabama the ancestors to the porch Creek they had an event occur in which you had these Spanish explorers Hernando doodo specifically in 1540 ventured down the cusa river ultimately down by the porch Creek over towards Selman demopoulos in 1540 ad in the summer Northwest Georgia Northeast Alabama they had Co on steroids because the Spanish looking for gold they came into these Village
s and these dense towns and ceremonial centers and they left behind massive amount of germs particularly some lethal ones in the form of things like smallpox and chickenpox measles the black plague which spread rapidly through them and led to depopulation archaeologically we see all these ceremonial centers being abandoned edwa was abandoned towns going down these River people are just leaving as a result of Doo's Expedition Native Americans suffered 80 to 90% population losses in most of presen
t day America if Co would have wiped out 80% of our population think about a place like Atlanta if 80% of everybody you knew was dead within 6 months how many interstates would you need over in Atlanta how many ballparks how many skies they'd be all abandoned that's what the Indians did it it just broke their whole Culture by the time you get to the historic tribes in the 17th and 18th century they're basically where they were all the way up into the 19th century and it would take scores of year
s for the Creek Indians to emerge as one of the surviving tribes after Spanish contact it's now the 1700s and the French the British and colonists have all made some form of contact with natives some tension had risen among the different people groups so in 1763 the British created the Proclamation line which prohibited anglo-american colonists from settling on lands acquired from the French following the French and Indian War they started moving around they did a end around along the Gulf Coast
through Florida and the Panhandle and came up into Alabama some of them came down to Tennessee River like doodo and came in through the mountain and it reached a boiling point where eventually you had conflict but how are current Day Creek Indians related to these events confirmed records of the Creek Indians date back to the late 1700s when several Creeks worked as interpreters for the US government during the American Revolution it was common practice for native people to to take on jobs uh w
ith governments various colonial governments state governments later on the US federal government as interpreters sometimes members of the community but there was a civil war that broke out in 1814 among the Creek Indians over how to respond to the Americans the British the French and even the Spaniards who were all trying to take their land the white sticks were the ones that wanted to H let's get along with everybody and let's just all we can keep maybe our language but we can speak English wo
uld be better than speaking moscovia on the other hand from what I understand the Upper Creek towns in northern Alabama they didn't really like all these white settlers moving in they wanted to basically resist any kind of attempt to change their clothing their lifestyle their religions they were the red sticks and they were willing to fight that's how it broke down basically in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814 which ends uh the creek War uh Andrew Jackson promised uh The Creeks that the remai
ning land would be protected and the United States would only have the right to build roads and Military posts and trading posts within that territory when they ultimately lost a Jackson and horse H bin they signed a treaty of cassetta that gave up kind of the central part of their original territory and that became the original state of Alabama you that that's how in 1819 Alabama became a state fast forward a few years and General Jackson is now President Andrew Jackson president Jackson uh wan
ted to remove predominantly southeast Indians to open up more land for uh cotton expansion for the expansion of of White Settlement there were also conflicts with uh state governments and the tribes that he thought would be solved by removing the people farther west but just a few years later Jackson's disdain for Indians became most apparent when he ordered the removal of all Southeastern tribes to make space for white settlements the Indian Removal Act resulted in what we we know as the Trail
of Tears a forced March from the southeast to new lands in present day Oklahoma Andrew Jackson was elected president the following year the Congress passes the Indian Removal Act which Jackson signed that Act was to remove all Native Americans from the Eastern United States not just the South but also up in the Midwest the government and the Army moved all the Indians in in Georgia and all they took and they round up a thousand or approximately a thousand Indians and they' put a officer in charg
e of that thousand people and they March them to Oklahoma when they got into Alabama and the creek War the creek people started resisting the government's inclusion and so the Army was so busy that that the government started hiring contractors but they round up indan here car the we tumka and lo and behold a lot of them would escape the government finally realized the uh inefficiency of that so they just quit they abandon the effort and so they never got the people that was the here at for desp
ite the removal effort several Creek families in South Alabama were able to escape expulsion those who had been loyal to the US government or had worked as Scouts and Traders were allowed to remain and were awarded land grants Lynn McGee and his family were among those that stayed because because the government had sold his original Homestead McGee was granted new Parcels of land in Escambia County an act that would prove significant later in the trib's history as part of the Treaty of cusa the
removal treaty that the Creeks signed with the US government one of the provisions allowed for individuals to remain if they gave up tribal citizenship and promised to live under the laws of the state if they did that they would be granted uh land allotments within Alabama they were assumed they were going to get land they're going to be reimbursed for all their livestock all their property they left behind and The Creeks the choc TOS the chickasaws see all these other Indians were given an opti
on they were basically lied to told them they were going to get paid they're going to get land they're going to get this if they were willing to move over 15,000 Creeks were removed from the south and taken Westward into what is now Oklahoma but unlike most creeks in Alabama a few accepted land allotments or evaded removal altogether and stayed behind those that remained lived as Farmers struggling to provide for their families it was tough for them to survive we had it just as worse during the
Civil Rights Movement as um you know as as African-American people you know it's like was it was it good to be Native American no it wasn't the Native Americans had a bunch of Holocaust the first Holocaust was the contact with the disease disease is devasta then you had displacement like the pilgrims all these people come and moving the Indians Inland other traditional homelands the trail of tear and the removal all these Indians moved out west the Prairie and then you had a culturation where yo
u had Indians that stayed put like porch Creek they adopted a lot of the British in this case what's amazing is they survived my great grandmother I remember asking her granny when did you know that you were Indian when did you know that you were Native American and she sat there and she kind of thought for a bit and she said I always knew we always knew that we were Indian I said did you know you were Creek Indian she said no we didn't know like what kind of Indian we were we just knew we were
Indian we knew that we were different it's important to recognize that you know what what's been passed down is this genetic imprint of just this resilient people these people who've been through so much there are civilizations that didn't stand the test of time they died out our people walked this land far before anybody ever touched it our genetic are imprinted everywhere it's honestly a story of just resilience many natives worked as sharecroppers and continued to face threats of removal and
in the late 19th and 20th centuries they faced even more segregation and discrimination in schools and churches throughout the Jim Crow era I think it made you feel like he was inferior to me it did for me that you were lesser when people won't want to sit with you sit beside you don't sit behind you didn't want to drink water after you you were the last one chosen you know you always last so I reckon it just makes you feel last you know the Discrimination was no more apparent than within the sc
hool system at at that time education is the key to so many things and it's not just the academic piece it's the experiential piece it's the meeting other people with different backgrounds experiences a grandmother both my grandmothers did not get their GED until they were in their 50s so think about it think about the struggles they had growing up that they were not allowed to go to school they were not allowed to create and achieve their dreams like we are today you know indan people are just
like anybody else I'm trying to say we I was a kid just like anybody else was but you know mama told us that we was indan people and uh and I never knew being IND them was bad the porch Creek Indians had many struggles uh throughout the years um education opportunities just was was not any for what I saw is people that were pign no Transportation no Health Care uh no education how do you survive in my role with the tribe one of the things I have to look at is weather how's weather going to affec
t this community how is weather going to affect team members or guests to this reservation or to our facilities my grandmother wanted to be a medeor ro ol ologist but at that time who was going to allow an Indian woman to not only go to high school but to go to college to become a meteorologist not a whole lot of people and I think my love of weather understanding weather came for my grandmother who all she wanted to do was be a meteorologist in the earlier part of the 19th century Indian childr
en were not allowed to go to any public schools their only education came from churches that were attempting to help and at best would only go up to the sixth grade level you know I didn't I didn't know racism or anything like that until I got in school and that followed me from I was say about the third grade up until I graduated from uh High School 12th grad I don't I feel like I don't Harbor any of that anymore it was a struggle our people seen that we needed education uh it was great to have
the missions that come in our community which was the Amite Mission the pistol payan Mission the Baptist missions a lot of that come in and they really helped a a lot you weren't allowed to get on the school bus for God's sakes you couldn't get an education past the sixth grade that's unheard of now right you know I mean everybody's allowed to get an education but like you know during the 60s like who who are you to tell me that I can't educate my children we were told that you know we we essen
tially weren't good enough to go to the local school system just because of the color of our skin we're talking you know like late 40s or 1950 so the the school didn't go far so you were able to maybe read and write uh did a little arithmetic and then that was about it I hear my mom talk about right in front of our house doter lived with his twin girls and was about the same age as my mother and uh he got out and stopped the bus school buses wouldn't stop for Indian children until one day A Man
by the name of Jack Dy would take a bold stand he took his twin girls and stood in the middle of the road forcing the bus to either stop or run over them the bus did stop and Jack's children were taken to the public school that day but much more needed to be done who are you to tell me that I'm not allowed to be be something more than what you've labeled me as oh I'm an Indian so I know I I'm cut off I'm cut off from knowledge I'm cut off from the you know whatever I can do more but no that's he
called their Bluff and he capitalized on it and he said he said I'm going to do what it takes for many years the Creek Indians in South Alabama had no elected leaders in fact an anthropologist by the name of Jay Anthony parades visited the tribe labeling them as the Lost Creeks of Alabama he made note that they had no organized leadership but in 1948 a man stepped up in an extraordinary way to lead this tribe his name was Calvin McGee or as he was called by his people the chief this bold act by
Jack Dy caused Chief Calvin McGee to bring a lawsuit against the County School Board to allow Indian children to attend the local schools one point my own family could not ride the school bus and I'm so glad that even though Chief Calvin had no degree didn't have a high school education but he never gave up the fight for our people to ride a school bus their children were allowed to go to public school the state even provided funding to build their very own School within their Community from wh
at I've learned is I've known that he was a standup man he was you know a God-fearing man he knew who he was he was a Native American man and I think what it's amazing is you know he owned that during a time that it wasn't good to claim those things my word is my bond and he said if I shake your hand that's it and he had several of those people that he talked to he shook their head and that's what he told him he said you can count on what I tell you cuz it's going to be what I know to be the tru
th we had a school in Port the building that the Episcopal Church Home was the Episcopal Church allowed that building to be become uh a school and I went to school there in that building till the fourth grade and then we built the the brick building that's there you see in the community that school was the first school that was built for the port Vander Creek Indians and um I went through the fourth through the sixth grade there and uh graduated from there and then uh started attending school in
Atmore my granny was an incredible woman and I think she underestimated herself um I don't think she recognized that that it with the inherent racism and the fact that the Indian School only allowed them to go to school to sixth grade and that she wasn't allowed to go to school Beyond sixth grade but she had that Quest that yearning for more knowledge that yearning for experience during my generation if you graduated with a high school with a diploma that was the ultimate that was it you have e
xceeded what you set out to do not nobody heard of College college was non-existent what was College Chief Calvin McGee was a descendant of Lynn McGee who was prominent in working with the US government during the Creek Civil War while the McGee family was prominent throughout the trib's history Calvin was the first to organize the band into an organized government complete with laws and elections in addition to the heavy discrimination that Indians across the US experienced there were a number
of treaties that the US government created that had not been honored one in particular was the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson specifically land allotment for Indians who chose to help the US government during the Indian War tribe after tribe sued the government so in 1946 the US government created the Indian Claims Commission to help settle any previous treaties that were never met this became a pivotal time for The Creeks they gave it the authority to seek out uh even before the trouble people mad
e a claim to seek out and investigate where they'd been these uh treaty violations and and compensation of property that had not been uh adequately compensated for and all it was actually one of those people from the church was up north and heard about a land claims that the Oklahoma Creek Indians uh were starting a petition against the United States for land that to sue them for the land in Alabama that was taken illegally uh and and they were looking for compensation for that land that started
some some movement here said well hey we need to be a part of that land uh suit I mean we're still here if they get something we entitled something in order to fully understand how the porch Creek Indians became federally recognized it's important to understand a few key events leading up to it when the Indian Claims Commission began in 1946 the Mogi nation of Oklahoma was one of the first to file land claims concerning land in Alabama one issue however is that some of that land still belonged
to the porch Band of Creek Indians who had remained in South Alabama well here was a prime example right here at PCH that people had not been to move to Oklahoma Chief Calvin formed a nonprofit organization called Creek Nation east of the Mississippi in order to be properly recognized by the court system and proceeded with the land claims case we did not have to go and become members of the Creek Nation in order to be compensated the court first ruled that we just ought to go and become members
of the Creek Nation well it took us about six years to prove to them that we never had the opportunity and we did not want the opportunity now people like Calvin McGee revert C others uh in the community they really believe that something could happen that we could become federally recognized I do think it was one of those critical moments in the history of the tribe where we were able to really say hey we've got we've got this kind of concrete proof that we have been here that we have lived as
a cohesive uh tribe for you know for over 125 years the significance of the nonprofit was huge the requirements for legal recognition required by the federal government were complex and arduous we were the Indian Community we were still being segregated against and not allowed to come into town you know and those types of things this case was taking decades to conclude but it was coming to an end if they won each Creek descendant would be awarded a portion of money based on the value of the land
at the time of the treaty but this small amount of money was never really the goal of the tribe there was a movement that said we're Creek Indians and we're still here in Alabama instead it created a much needed precedent for what they really wanted wanted to do next apply for federal recognition I think the land claims process certainly helped support our petition at least for that period in time it showed that we were recognized by the government that we were here they recognized that they ow
ed us because we had been here you know in this area but it certainly did not satisfy everything you know or come close to satisfying everything we needed to satisfy a for the federal acknowledgement process because you have to show continuous existence from 1900 you know until now when I went to serve at the department of interior I got a unique behind the scenes look at what it took to become federally acknowledged it is an extensive process you need to show genology you need to show you know
political leadership you have to show evidence of your community that others saw you as a distinct Community as well so there's just all these different aspects and angles that they are looking at to make sure that you're not just making yourself up as a group I don't know if we really understood what recognition would would bring we knew that it would be that one-on-one relationship with the federal government and since we were still here and we still own property here uh we felt that we were i
n titled to not just be recognized by the court but that we be needed to be recognized by the United States Congress as a distinct tribe of people in the midst of the land's claim case Calvin and other leaders of the tribe decided to push forward to get federally recognized a process that usually took many years it says that the group must show continuous leadership but it must be in one jig graphical location so we changed from the Creek Nation east of the Mississippi which was form for the lan
d claims cases and we had been successful in getting that what little it was but this effort was an effort to recognize the people here at the head of P River as P Banda Creek IND he needed to make his way into the offices of many different prominent political figures he needed to be in Washington DC many times Gathering all the necessary documents needed for recognition and he needed help paying for it we just uh started really putting together finding people who could help us Calvin went to to
Washington DC to try to find documents and it was all about these records and documents that we had to compile and to show that uh that we was continued as a as a group of people the community organized many dinners to help cover the expenses of traveling to Washington DC we were working for a goal you it all started from the early days of of my father Mal McGee and Calvin uh and several other uh leaders of the community a lot of tribal people volunteered uh and was willing to step forward to p
ut in a lot of hours and time for that to put that to gather those records as Chief McGee traveled around around looking for support he struggled to be seen as an Indian he didn't have a stereotypical Indian life as portrayed in the movies at that time but he realized that to be recognized he needed to be recognizable we started you know getting a regalia getting getting some suits made with ribbons and stuff like that because when you go you want to be recognized as travel he said I'm going to
do what it takes I'm going dress out I'm going to make myself look pretty if you walked in with a business suit on which most Indians today that's that's the the attire but you can say well you're not Indian but if you come in with a head Bonnet on you must be Indian when I walk into this room your jaw is going to drop and you're going to say okay what is it you need Calvin's willingness to adopt this style worked he was able to get in front of very prominent political figures to help bring very
necessary awareness to their recognition process and I have developed a renewed appreciation for what our elders had gone through to get us federally recognized porch Creeks began their powwow to celebrate culture family and Community while raising awareness that there was still a creek tribe in Alabama we'd heard some of our folks and well I think several of them had been to Oklahoma and they and they heard the term powow and that's how uh we started at home uh at home being porch once we deci
ded had that first poow and where we probably had a couple thousand people people show up from there it grew and these powwow events would be used to attract all the right people to see just how relevant this tribe was it continued uh as a young boy I danced we started Pow Wow to uh here right here in our community to for an event to let everybody else come in and to see that there's Indians still in South Alabama as a little girl I always participated in the native Dance Mr Billy Smith one of o
ur elders he was always so passionate about our heritage and our culture and he told us to never be ashamed of who we are as Creek Indians and he taught us that native dance once we had that first powow we continued to have powow and we invited different tribes from the nation to come and visit us and see that we were uh Creek people throughout that application process uh we had a lot of folks we had political uh leaders uh congressmen Senators that really supported us local uh uh Pol political
people uh even in the city of Atmore all supporting our efforts the federal benefits that could be offered if you received Federal recognition were immense at the time he put all the blocks together and it took help it it wasn't just him no it took the community you know it took people it took you know people Gathering money it took uh help from whether it was Lawyers it took help from the church You Know Chief Calvin has something going here we need to we need all he needs right now is our supp
ort and that help came in multiple forms Chief Calvin McGee was a sharecropper with few Financial Resources he had nothing he worked hard he had a little Farm down in uh ports he really uh just about lost everything he had with the recognition process there were several times that he had to mortgage his house you know and if he had any Farm money then he used his own money in other words to make the trips if he could and then his sons would help him you know give him money to buy gas buy food an
d all that kind of stuff my mom remembers going to Virginia we used to go up there my dad took people Indian people up to Virginia dig potatoes and do a lot of that and then when they get ready to come back home they'd all get back on the back of a flatbed truck and ride back to Alabama my first trip to Washington uh I was about 16 years old I had been dating Mr M his son his baby son Dewey he had to go to Washington with his mom and dad because he always did a lot of the driving while we were t
here in Washington that said Calvin I want you to go find my ancestors you know my mama always said or my grany always said we was Indie and we were Creek Indy and uh they give them a certain amount of information and we would we worked in the archives do and I did they were doing other work like with Calvin always tried to talk to whatever Senator he could that he thought might would help him olette McGee was only 16 years old when she became actively involved in helping Chief McGee locate all
the necessary documents in DC we asked to take all and and it we were able to go with him a second time CU he needed Dy to drive and de always where he went I had to go cuz I guess that's why he was deciding I was going to be his wife she later did become Dewey's wife and continued working alongside him and her now father-in-law Chief Calvin McGee Dey was calin's baby son they had five boys and he was the baby we visited Kennedy that's the car we was in Chief Calvin McGee became active in Native
American issues at a national level even in the middle of their recognition process he was helping other tribes do the same he took part in a national effort to bring awareness of Indian tribes to the federal government Calvin already knew at that point where that we had to do that we had no recog Miss in the state so far as an Indian tribe his leadership and involvement culminated in a national Indian conference that led McGee to meet the president of the United States it was kind of exciting
to do really it was I was so at awe of him and he's the only president that I got to see that up that close up you see how Mr McGee just pushed right on in there he wanted to talk to him so he was turning around looking around and the president said Mr bgee he said I never have seen a blue-eyed Indian he said I always thought they were brown eyes he Mr be said oh no no we blue eyes and he did he had pretty blue eyes it really just was almost like a flash you know there was so much to look at and
there was so much to try remember and I thought I had remembered more of it but um I can see it right now my you know how you're look into the back of your mind and your eyes and it's just like yesterday during the 1813 Indian War 25 million acres of land was seized by General Jackson Calvin McGee and the tribal leaders proved that payment was never made for this land and as a result the Creek Nation was awarded a sum of $4.5 million for which each original member of the Creek Nation east of th
e Mississippi received $113 I received a check as a little girl and it had my name and I told my mom I said that's my check that's in my name she said no she said you have to we have to send that back to the tribe so they can use that money to go to Washington and continue to fight for federal recognition and I didn't get it as a kid because I was like Mom that check's in my name that's my money but I'm so grateful that she understood and that she knew the significance and what would come from b
eing federally recognized as a porch Band of Creek Indians the ironic and one of the real tragedy things about it is uh Calvin McGee never got to see the result of that lawsuit he spent his whole life working on it and knew he' want it but the government and its bureaucratic inefficiencies gave the Bureau of Indian Affairs no deadline to when they had to compensate our people so Calvin died before ever seen anybody receive compensation for that and I just really was sad because when he worked so
hard he would stay up till late at night working on those things people just don't realize how much time he put in he didn't hardly have the strength sometime to work cuz he already had a heart problem the doctor told him he said now Calvin I can get you a heart and he said no this is the heart God gave me he said I want to go into heaven with it CU Calvin loved his people he wanted to work for him and that's why he did it even if you never got a chance to shake his hand or like me I never get
to meet him you know that you descend from somebody that that had just initiative and he had a goal in mind he wanted to include his people along the way in 1984 the porch Band of Creek Indians led by tribal chairman Eddie tulus was officially recognized by the federal government this meant they had the right to self-govern as a Sovereign Nation within the United States it was a moment I will never forget my home place is right here in the core community and I will never forget the day that that
was announced on the powwow grounds I was young had no clue what federal recognition meant but I was happy because all the adults were so happy that we had accomplished something that was a long hardfought battle for the porch Band of Creek Indians they accepted us our application and approved that process the land that we owned at that time we gave to the federal government uh and became trust property this meant that their land is protected by the federal govern government from being purchase
d or taken by non-indians and though the federal government offered some assistance the tribe would need to step up in significant ways we were in extreme poverty we've seen right off the bat that Federal funding was not going to be enough their people still lived in tremendous poverty and the tribal council was eager to work towards improving their way of living for the first time but it also brought other things with that that we had to then create laws we had to put laws because state law doe
s not apply on our reservation a constitution was written and laws had to be created that would govern their tribe and its lands it wasn't until 1988 4 years after recognition that the Indian gaming regulatory Act was enacted this would give the tribe a unique opportunity to build a bingo hall that led to casinos on their land which resulted in a flow of Revenue that the tribe had never seen before we created a an entity called Creek Indian Enterprise and it was our first Economic Development ar
m of the tribe we felt like business and politics need to separate we were federally recognized in 1984 but the Indian gaming regulatory Act was not passed until 1988 so all of the benefits we've derived from gaming really had nothing to do with why we initially sought Federal acknowledgement we sought Federal acknowledgement because we wanted the federal government to recognize that we have always been here and that we were still here that was what federal acknowledgement was about the tribal c
ouncil was extremely focused on one goal the entire time pull their people out of poverty we were able to become classified as a having a minority business even after recognition the United States and SBA started putting together programs that helped minority businesses so then we were able to use those advantages uh as minority groups to be able to go and do what what we do and now that there existed a stream of income for the tribe there were initial iives that could finally be implemented one
of those initiatives was housing it started very basic with a few houses built on our trust property some of our people started moving out of uh uh substandard housing on the reservation to into a brick home I never lived in a house that had a bathroom in it I never lived in a house that had running water inside I never lived in a house that had electricity into it till I was 16 years old due to the fact that we done migrant farm work you know you'd have three or four families living in one hou
se we've got a lot of people that uh are living a quality of life that their parents never even Envision 25 years ago I couldn't even offer you a piece of bread but today I can offer you a bounty of food at the table and cooking is what a lot of times brings us together creating new laws leveraging Federal programs and running a Sovereign Nation is no easy task the nine member Council had their hands full what areas needed immediate attention what services needed needed to be implemented first w
e depended on ATM for fire protection there's two railroads between here and Atmore fire department we lost a number of houses because Atmore couldn't get here soon enough CU those old houses they caught on fire they burnt in hurry so the first major investment we made here was a fire truck since its opening in 1988 the fire department has gone from being entirely volunteer-based to now including both paid and volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians they respond to a wide range
of emergencies both on and off the reservation we have the finest Fire Department South of Montgomery mobile has a good fire department but they don't respond near as fast as we do just having that readily available Fire Equipment major benefit for the people here the tribe implemented many initiatives throughout the years but perhaps the two that they're most proud of are health and education I often times tell people that my grandmother would probably say oh is this a city she would be so shoc
ked because the years that we had healthc care growing up I used to get my teeth cleaned in a little Airstream bus and now we have a 75,000 ft Heth Department with a state-of art equipment to clean our teeth to provide medical services um and and the future goal for our health department is to provide conier medicine to all of our members and our employees education from the very beginning has been a foundation for this tribe our tribe offers so much to our kids these days we offer $100,000 to e
very Tribal member to obtain higher education quality education and degrees and they have taken advantage of that so my kid just got accepted into 2K program so now he has a spot in two three and 4K so just child care and how our cultural Department comes into the classroom and teaches language and culture and dance and traditions and foods and just so much my kids will get that stting at 2 years old whereas I got that as an adult we have more lawyers now than we had High School graduates when I
come to work for the time gaming revenues have created opportunities for the tribe to become truly self-sufficient and dramatically improve the quality of life on the reservation as well as extend those services to neighboring communities around Alabama I'm I'm a living embodiment of that I you know I know was fortunate enough to receive you know a full ride to the school of my choice all because the drive has paid for it my great wasn't able to finish school there because her brother was injur
ed and of course with the extreme poverty they lived in you know her family needed her to come home and help um but she really I I I am humbled by my own educational experience but I really do feel like in some ways I'm finishing her journey we're not unlike any other community in the country all of our people suffered from trauma if you were raised by our elders if you were traumatized you were told to push it down you were told not to feel you were told that that was not important the strange
thing about that is if we don't talk about trauma if we don't learn how to deal with trauma then trauma becomes mental illness trauma becomes alcoholism trauma becomes uh drug addiction trauma becomes other things that um our ancestors did not want us to become but because they didn't know how to explain it to the younger people that's all we knew we knew to suppress individuals don't have to be quiet about it anymore the stigma is slowly and surely becoming less and less you're going to have ha
ve a place that you can go and people who are going to help you and that have your best interest at heart the porch Band of Creek Indians is a prime example of the progress Federal recognition can lead to the tribe has a stable government that provides for Education Recreation Public Safety and Health Care the tribe would not be where it is today if its leaders of yesterday had not not acted on the vision they had for their people nobody in this community was raised you know in the way that our
old people used to do it it was looked down upon it wasn't as acceptable and cool as it is today to be Indian or to have something different about you we need to continue to educate them on on the struggles uh who they are as a tribal community and people some Elders had told me one time that this is always going to be home you know no matter where you're at you're this place you can always come back to this place will always accept you there is a connection with all of us that have grown up in
this community it is unique it surpasses our Blood Ties it's the experiences that we've all shared but first and foremost We Are Forever a family if I had one wish I wish that those people who came before me could come back and stay for about 8 hours and see where we are see that everything that they struggled for all of the criticism and all of the opposition all of everything that they were told they couldn't do and that we would never accomplish anything I wish they would come back and see wh
ere we are he dearly loved his people and that's why he would spend so much time because he knew what of things to come you know he knew there would be good things and he wanted it for his children and other people's children hu God please H H hallelu hey God H hallelu make of H H Hallelujah hallelu God H hu hallelu H Hallelujah the I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not
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