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Pearl River Elementary School organizes the yearly Pearl River Spring Festival to celebrate the spring season, as well as the end of the school year.Â
This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in New England. Remembered and retold as an allegory for perseverance and cooperation, the story of that first Thanksgiving has become an important part of how Americans think about the founding of their country. But what happened four months later, starting in March 1622 about 600 miles south of Plymouth, is, I believe, far more reflective of the countryâs originsâa story not of peaceful coexistence but of distrust, displacement and repression.
Our fair, in Neshoba County, means different things to each of us, but collectively, it is a time to get together as a tribe and showcase our rich culture and openly invite the public to visit us and learn about us in our homeland that my ancestors refused to leave during the removal period of the 1820s and 1830s.Â
Todayâs Choctaw Indian Fair looks much different than its very simple, humble beginnings. Tribal members exhibited their garden produce at the time, just as our ancestors did during harvest season when the gathering in the old days was known as the New Corn Ceremony or the Green Corn Festival. A princess pageant wasnât part of the Fair until 1955, and country-music concerts added a decade later.Â
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