SRC Receives Third Trail of Tears Grant /title>

Sequoyah Research Center
News Release
April 25, 2006
Contact
501-371-7585

SRC Receives Third Trail of Tears Grant

The Arkansas Humanities Council has awarded a grant of $5000 to the Sequoyah Research Center for preproduction work on a short animated feature film on Muscogee (Creek) removal through Arkansas.

Project director is Roy Boney, Jr., who is pursuing graduate study in the UALR Art Department and holds the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Fellowship in the Center. The grant will support Boney’s preproduction work for the animated feature in DVD format: research, script writing, and creation of storyboards.

The feature will tell the story of the Muscogee (Creek) Trail of Tears through Arkansas during 1836 and 1837, primarily the overland route from Memphis to Fort Smith. All Muscogee (Creek) characters will speak in Muscogee language with English subtitles.

Boney has helped produce several Native language animated film features, including one in Muscogee. His work has been shown at the Smithsonian Institution and other such prestigious venues in the United States and abroad.

Within the past year, the Sequoyah Research Center has received funds from the National Park Service to enhance the Indian removal pages on its web site and from the Bay and Paul Foundations for an animated feature on the Cherokee Trail of Tears.