Felix Clary
ICT + Tulsa World
The Cherokee Nation broke ground Friday afternoon on a new park to be named after the late Chief Wilma Mankiller.
Cherokee leaders, and the family of Mankiller, hope the park will bring the Tahlequah community together in the spirit of Gadugi, which means “working together” in the Cherokee language. Gadugi is a Cherokee value that Mankiller emphasized during her time as chief.
“Every one of our values are important because they’re all wrapped in love,” said Cherokee Deputy Chief Bryan Warner. “To understand what it means to love, when maybe the rest of the world doesn’t love us… nobody in the modern world embodies that like Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller.”
The $10 million, 15-acre park will be built on property that was previously home to a septic manufacturing company.
The park was originally the vision of Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr.’s daughter, Jasmine (Jazzy) Hoskin. When Jazzy was younger, she suggested to her father that they turn the land into a park with a swing set to bring people together. Hoskin said her vision is coming to life on a much larger scale in the Fall of 2025.
The future park will include a playground with lots of swing sets, Hoskin noted, as well as an area for traditional Cherokee games, a community building, hiking trails, a dog park, water features and more.
“I think the cultural elements, including the heirloom garden, are going to be particularly special,” said Hoskin in a Tulsa World and ICT interview.
The heirloom garden will be a place to plant traditional seeds that came with the tribe on the trail of tears during their forced removal from their homelands in Georgia to Oklahoma.
Donna Edmondson, a close friend of Mankiller’s, attended the groundbreaking ceremony. She was wearing one of Mankiller’s necklaces that was given to her by Mankiller’s daughter, Gina Olaya. The necklace was also worn by the actress Kimberly Norris-Guerrero, who played Wilma Mankiller in the 2013 film “Cherokee Word for Water.”
“You know, I think she (Mankiller) would be so thrilled about the park,” said Edmondson in a Tulsa World and ICT interview. “I’m not sure that she would be thrilled with having her name on it, just because she was humble and only wanted to work hard for the people.”
Mankiller’s daughter, Felicia Olaya, also attended the groundbreaking ceremony.
“When I was a young child, one of my fondest memories with her (Mankiller) was going to the parks,” said Olaya. “And this park is going to be like our own little Cherokee Nation gathering place. She would have loved that.”
The family of Mankiller and the Cherokee Nation leaders conducted the ceremonial digging of the earth with shovels as the crowd cheered them on.
This story is co-published by the Tulsa World and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Oklahoma area.
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