We're Oklahoma Rising,Brighter than a star.
Stand up and sing about her,
Let the world know who we are.
From a rugged territory,
To the Oklahoma Run,
We made our dreams come true,
Just look at what we've done.
We're the Heartland of America,
Our heart is in the race,
We sailed that prairie schooner
Right into outer space.
We are young and we are strong,
We're coming with a roar.
Sooner than later,
We'll be knocking at your door.
Say hello to the future,
Gonna shake the future's hand
And build a better world
Upon this sacred, ancient land.
We're Oklahoma Rising,
Brighter than a star,
Stand up and sing about her,
Let the world know who we are:
We're the sons and the daughters,
The children of the West.
We're Oklahoma Rising,
Rising up to be the best.
With guts and grace and mercy,
We have shown them in our turn,
When the fields have turned to dust
And the sky began to burn.
When the storm took our souls
And the mighty buildings fell,
We fought the desperation,
Our Faith has served us well.
I choke back my emotion,
I'm an Okie and I'm proud,
So when you call me Okie,
Man, you better say it loud!
I'm looking to the Heavens,
And the Eagle's climbing free.
It's the spirit of our people,
All the way, can you see...
We're Oklahoma Rising,
Brighter than a star.
Stand up and sing about her,
Let the world know who we are:
We're the sons and the daughters,
The children of the West.
We're Oklahoma Rising,
Rising up to be the best...
(Lyrics by Vince Gill and Jimmy Webb)
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The State of Oklahoma celebrates its 100 birthday....
How do translate your heritage into a single heartbeat? How do you celebrate your culture, the very essence of who you are?
Whitecrow is a sixth-generation Oklahoman in a state that now claims only 100 years. Whitecrow's Choctaw ancestors walked the Trail of Tears in 1834, financing their own removal at the request of the United States government from their traditional homelands in coastal Mississippi and Alabama. When my family arrived in Indian Territory, they were stamped "Mississippi Choctaw Rejected." And who knows why? Legend has it that we could not speak the White Man's language and therefore did not heed the notice instructing us to go to the White Man's hearing that would have allotted us the Indian land we might have been entitled to.
Nevertheless, we hold Oklahoma land, purchased with blood from the Chickasaws, much over 100 years ago. That land is our home, our birthright and our future. It it here my family lives their lives.... on the sacred, crimson Earth....
WE ARE Oklahoma Rising.
The community in which I live was founded by a redheaded Scotsman born in Alabama. And perhaps it was fitting that my guest at Oklahoma's 100th birthday was a woman born and raised in Alabama.
The night before the Centennial event, we attended a simple grade school basketball game and marveled at the courage of every small town, no matter where. On the morning of November 16, 2007, the actual 100th birthday of the Sooner State, my friend and I watched a reenactment of the Oklahoma statehood proclamation on television, complete with a the pistol shot and Oklahoma militia response that ushered in the 46th State of these United States of America.
My friend and I, we had every Oklahoma option at our disposal. We could have gone to Guthrie, the Oklahoma territorial capitol, where the parades and celebrations were held on that Statehood Day. We could have gone to Lawton, where the buffalo roam regardless of humankind and their politics and boundaries. We could have gone to Tulsa, where the Spirit of the East burgeons in Oklahoma, providing a clear transition to the American West.
But we did not. We went, instead, to the Oklahoma National Memorial, where a distinctly American terrorist claimed the lives of 169 Oklahomans, leaving us, the living, in 1995 with the precursor burden to 9-11:
We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
My friend and I were better for that. She understood Oklahoma a little more and I was reminded of the violence that always seems to permeates our lives.
But Oklahoma is not all about bad men, bad wind, heat and bad luck. As we learned during a televised world class 100th birthday celebration, Oklahoma is more about hope than any other place.
After an introduction from our Governor, the Choctaws performed the traditional Eagle Dance from the rooftop of Oklahoma's largest public arena. Accompanied by a song from his tribal sister and the Oklahoma Philharmonic, a young Cherokee man in the guise of the Eagle, fit as the finest ballerina, soared on Red ropes from the top of the arena to a darkened floor. As the music peaked, the young man bowed his head to an American Bald Eagle that flew across the arena from one Blessed Spirit to another.
My heart jerked, tears fell and my Spirit felt at home. I thought of my heritage...
Something called 'the
In another commemoration of Oklahoma's birthday, the next morning, I took my friend to one of the places I know where the Great Spirit lives: In the far reaches of my brother's Oklahoma wheat field, in November, where the world is poised to give way to Winter and the Spirit expects rest. My Alabama friend had not experienced the Spirit firsthand and and I am happy to have shared it with her: That place where time is silent and distant and the water flows as the Beaver decrees.
We found the skull of long dead cow and consecrated it in our own way, by propping it up against a tree giving way to cold. It will remain there until the dust overtakes it, a marker, perhaps, of the fact we were there....
The word "Oklahoma" is Choctaw for home of the red people.
We ARE Oklahoma Rising....on this sacred, crimson Earth...
Whitecrow
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