Comrades

Brothers and Sisters of the Struggles:

I’m sad to learn I’ve lost a great and true Warrior Brother, Tom Manning, who left this earth only very recently. He is free now. Dealing with our loss is not getting easier. The only positive way I can deal with the loss of our great comrade is to think of his transition in those terms. Tom is free now, and it is always better to be free.

Coyote spent several years in prison with Oso Blanco. He visited the Trail of Tears memorial after his release and mailed photographs to Oso Blanco to commemorate the trip.

For people who don’t know, the Trail of Tears is the journey that most Cherokee people endured as they were forcibly removed from their homelands in the southeast in 1838. In the Cherokee language, it is called nu na da ul tsun yi (the place where they cried) or nu na hi du na tlo hi lu i (the trail where they cried). The roughly 1000-mile journey was taken on foot in very cold weather and approximately 4,000 Cherokee people didn’t survive the harsh conditions.