By Morgan Taylor, Reporter
OKMULGEE, Oklahoma – The Muscogee (Creek) Nation Historic and Cultural Preservation Department was awarded grant funding of $100,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The funds will be used towards a new oral history project titled “A Twenty-First-Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against COVID-19.”
The MCN Historic and Cultural Preservation Oral Historian Midge Dellinger says the grant will help with the purchase of oral history recording supplies and fund other developments including the creation of a digital archive and website which will be accessible to citizens once created.
Forty interviews will be collected and recorded over the course of this project from MCN citizens who will tell their stories and how their lives were affected during the pandemic.
“This project is going to allow us to create a historical record about the COVID-19 pandemic in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation,” Dellinger said. “Our ancestors experienced, suffered, and survived many adverse events during their lifetimes including pandemics but this time through this project we are going to be able to add to our historical narrative and record what the Muscogee people of 2020 and 2021 have experienced and suffered because of COVID-19.”
This project will take course over the next two-years before being presented to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Dellinger adds, “We all know that Mvskoke oral traditions have played a key role in our survival since time immemorial. Given our current global situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the uncertainty of life and economic stability, projects such as the COVID-19 project are critical to the very existence of Mvskoke Peoples.”
Mvskoke Media plans to report on upcoming events regarding the oral history project.
