CULLOWHEE – Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Center will display a photography exhibit focusing on the Trail of Tears in the museum’s Gallery C through Sept. 30.
Including 50 contemporary photographs by David G. Fitzgerald, the collection shows important sites along the 1,200-mile Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the route of the forced removal of the Cherokee people from their homelands in 1838.
Complimenting the images is text by scholar Duane King and a reproduction of the 1838 protest roll that contained 15,562 Cherokee names.
Fitzgerald, a native of Oklahoma, traveled to each of the nine states along the trail to photograph the historic sites. King has authored more than 60 publications on Native American topics and is the founding editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies.
The Trail of Tears photography exhibit is a traveling exhibit on loan from the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee.
The Mountain Heritage Center, open to the public free of charge, is located on the ground floor of WCU’s H.F. Robinson Administration Building. The museum is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday year-round; from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday year-round; and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June through October.
For more information about the museum’s programs and special events, call 828-227-7129 or visit www.wcu.edu/mhc.
Source: WCU release
