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Times Opinion: Trump’s rules threaten history at Georgia’s MLK Jr. and Ocmulgee national sites

AP Photo by Michael Warren / Isley Phillips chases her brother, Noah, and his raccoon-tail hat as part of their traditional Raccoon Dance, Sept. 17, 2022, in Macon, Ga. The teenagers are members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and performed at the 30th annual Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration at the Ocmulgee Mounds. Georgia's Congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday, May 1, 2024, to protect some of the ancestral lands of the Muscogee tribe as a national park and preserve.
AP Photo by Michael Warren / Isley Phillips chases her brother, Noah, and his raccoon-tail hat as part of their traditional Raccoon Dance, Sept. 17, 2022, in Macon, Ga. The teenagers are members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and performed at the 30th annual Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration at the Ocmulgee Mounds. Georgia's Congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday, May 1, 2024, to protect some of the ancestral lands of the Muscogee tribe as a national park and preserve. AP Photo by Michael Warren / Isley Phillips chases her brother, Noah, and his raccoon-tail hat as part of their traditional Raccoon Dance, Sept. 17, 2022, in Macon, Ga. The teenagers are members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and performed at the 30th annual Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration at the Ocmulgee Mounds. Georgia's Congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday, May 1, 2024, to protect some of the ancestral lands of the Muscogee tribe as a national park and preserve.

By Nedra Rhone / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (TNS) 4 min read

More than 1,000 years ago, the Early Mississippian people, a diverse collection of Native American cultures, built massive mounds at Ocmulgee in what is now Macon.

The mounds, rising up to 50 feet into the air, stretched as far north as Wisconsin. They served as burial sites for elites, platforms for the homes of community leaders and spaces for gathering.

The mounds were the spiritual heart of the native communities, specifically the Muscogee (Creek), whose descendants venture to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park each September to remember their connection to the land.

A series of treaties began forcing them off in the 1800s, and by 1821, the people who constructed these cultural and architectural marvels were forced out by settlers.

This doesn’t paint American history in the positive light Donald Trump wants to force on us, but it is the truth.