The Coharie Tribe will have a special guest this week, as Dennis Banks, founder of the American Indian Movement and The Longest Walk 5, travels through Coharie Land as part of a 3,600 mile journey across the United States.
Banks is a Native American leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author who is a member of the Anishinabe, Ojibwa tribe, born on Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. In 1968 he co-founded the American Indian Movement to protect the traditional ways of Indian people and to engage in legal cases protecting treaty rights of American Indians.
The Coharie Tribe is hosting a community-wide event Wednesday, June 29, at 6 p.m. at the Coharie Tribal Center. Banks will be walking from Robeson County and officially walk onto the Coharie Tribal grounds around lunch Wednesday. The sacred ceremony will be held later in the afternoon. All dancers are asked to attend and come in full regalia at 5:30 p.m. Smokey River drummers will be assisting in the ceremony.
For more information on the Longest Walk 5, visit www.TheLongestWalk.com.