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My Ability To Survive Personal Crises Is Really A Mark Of The Character Of My People. Individually And Collectively, We Must React With A Tenacity That Allows Us Again And Again To Bounce Back From Adversity.

-Wilma Mankiller

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My Ability To Survive

Wilma Mankiller

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My Ability To Survive Personal Crises Is Really A Mark Of The Character Of My People. Individually And Collectively, We Must React With A Tenacity That Allows Us Again And Again To Bounce Back From Adversity.

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Take Care How You Place Your Moccasins Upon The Earth, Step With Care, For The Faces Of The Future Generations Are Looking Up From The Earth Waiting Their Turn For Life.

We Are A Revitalized Tribe. After Every Major Upheaval, We Have Been Able To Gather Together As A People To Rebuild A Community And A Government. Individually And Collectively, Cherokee People Possess An Extraordinary Ability To Face Down Adversity And Continue Moving Forward. We Are Able To Do That Because Our Culture, Though Certainly Diminished, Has Sustained Us Since Time Inmemorial. This Cherokee Culture Is A Well-kept Secret.

My Ability To Survive Personal Crises Is Really A Mark Of The Character Of My People. Individually And Collectively, We Must React With A Tenacity That Allows Us Again And Again To Bounce Back From Adversity.

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The Secret Of Our Success Is That We Never, Never Give Up.

Prior To My Election, Young Cherokee Girls Would Never Have Thought That They Might Grow Up And Become Chief.

Growth Is A Painful Process. If We’re Ever Going To Collectively Begin To Grapple With The Problems That We Have Collectively, We’re Going To Have To Move Back The Veil And Deal With Each Other On A More Human Level.

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Friends Describe Me As Someone Who Likes To Sing And Dance Along The Edge Of The Roof. I Try To Encourage Young Women To Be Willing To Take Risks, To Stand Up For The Things They Believe In, And To Step Up And Accept The Challenge Of Serving In Leadership Roles.

A Significant Number Of People Believe Tribal People Still Live And Dress As They Did 300 Years Ago. During My Tenure As Principal Chief Of The Cherokee Nation, National News Agencies Requesting Interviews Sometimes Asked If They Could Film A Tribal Dance Or If I Would Wear Traditional Tribal Clothing For The Interview. I Doubt They Asked The President Of The United States To Dress Like A Pilgrim For An Interview.

A Lot Of Young Girls Have Looked To Their Career Paths And Have Said They'd Like To Be Chief. There's Been A Change In The Limits People See.

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If You Argue With A Fool, Someone Passing By Will Not Be Able To Tell Who Is The Fool And Who Is Not.

Though Many Non-native Americans Have Learned Very Little About Us, Over Time We Have Had To Learn Everything About Them. We Watch Their Films, Read Their Literature, Worship In Their Churches, And Attend Their Schools. Every Third-grade Student In The United States Is Presented With The Concept Of Europeans Discovering America As A "new World" With Fertile Soil, Abundant Gifts Of Nature, And Glorious Mountains And Rivers. Only The Most Enlightened Teachers Will Explain That This World Certainly Wasn't New To The Millions Of Indigenous People Who Already Lived Here When Columbus Arrived.

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It's Like Everybody's Sitting There And They Have Some Kind Of Veil Over Their Face, And They Look At Each Other Through This Veil That Makes Them See Each Other Through Some Stereotypical Kind Of Viewpoint. If We're Ever Gonna Collectively Begin To Grapple With The Problems That We Have Collectively, We're Gonna Have To Move Back The Veil And Deal With Each Other On A More Human Level.

Look Forward. Turn What Has Been Done Into A Better Path.

Negative Thoughts Were Treated By Cherokee Healers With The Same Medicines As Wounds, Headaches, Or Physical Illness. It Was Believed That Unchecked Negative Thoughts Can Permeate The Being And Manifest Themselves In Negative Actions.

I Want To Be Remembered As The Person Who Helped Us Restore Faith In Ourselves.

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My Name Is Mankiller, And In The Old Cherokee Nation, When We Lived Here In The Southeast, We Lived In Semi-autonomous Villages, And There Was Someone Who Watched Over The Village, Who Had The Title Of Mankiller. And I'm Not Sure What You Could Equate That To, But It Was Sort Of Like A Soldier Or Someone Who Was Responsible For The Security Of The Village, And So Anyway This One Fellow Liked The Title Mankiller So Well That He Kept It As His Name, And That's Who We Trace Our Ancestry Back To.

I Hope Many Of You Will Be People That Question Why Things Are And Why We Have To Do Them The Way We Have Always Done Them. I Hope You Will Take Some Risks, Exert Some Real Leadership On Issues, And If You Will, Dance Along The Edge Of The Roof As You Continue For Life.

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