BICENTENNIAL SPEAKER TO DISCUSS WALK ON TRAIL OF TEARS

The Cape Girardeau Bicentennial Lecture Series will continue Friday on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University with a presentation on the Trail of Tears.

The lecture is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium in the Crisp Hall of Nursing.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Jerry Ellis of Valley Head, Ala., will discuss his experience of walking the Trail of Tears in 1989. Ellis, who is a writer and playwright, and part Cherokee, walked the entire length of the Trail "to honor the Indians who suffered and died there in 1838 and 1839," he said.

Rather than walk from east to west, Ellis walked the trail from west to east, in his attempt to "return to my roots, a luxury taken from the Cherokee," he said.

The account of his experience was published in 1991 in a book titled "Walking the Trail: One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears." The book, which was a Literary Guild selection, received excellent reviews.

The success of this book prompted Ellis to continue his walking and writing. In 1992, he walked the route of the Pony Express and is now writing of this experience.

The Cape Girardeau Bicentennial Lecture series is sponsored by the Missouri Humanities Council, the state-based arm of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University and the Cape Girardeau Bicentennial Committee.

The 14 monthly lectures will end in October, followed by an open session Nov. 5, in which Cape Girardeau residents will be invited to meet and share their stories about the history of the city and the region.

Upon the conclusion of the series, the lectures will be incorporated into a book titled "Cape Girardeau: A Bicentennial Perspective."