Native people to get a voice at 400th anniversary of Pilgrims arrival in Plymouth

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(20 Nov 2018) The seaside town where the Pilgrims came ashore in 1620 is gearing up for a 400th birthday bash, and everyone's invited. • Organizers are taking care to honor the native people whose ancestors wound up losing their land and their lives. • I feel good. Yeah, 'cause we've been here – we are the original people of the land, and we've been here for over 12,000 years, and we are still here today. So, you can't tell the Pilgrim story being here 400 years, without telling the Wampanoag story – the indigenous people of the land, said Darius Coombs, Wampanoag and Algonkian researcher and historian at the Plimoth Plantation museum. • The commemoration known as Plymouth 400 will feature events throughout 2020. • But the emphasis is on highlighting the often-ignored history of the Wampanoag and poking holes in the narrative that Pilgrims and Indians coexisted in peace and harmony. • Organizers are understandably cautious this time around. • When the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing was observed in 1970, state officials disinvited a leader of the Wampanoag Nation — the Native American tribe that helped the haggard newcomers survive their first bitter winter — after learning his speech would bemoan the disease, racism and oppression that followed the Pilgrims. • This triggered angry demonstrations from tribal members who staged a National Day of Mourning, a somber remembrance that indigenous New Englanders and supporters have observed on every Thanksgiving Day since. • So, the way that we reconcile all of this – all of these different perspectives for 2020 – is that we know we're not perfect, and we know that we are not going to change everything with a commemoration in 2020. But what we do want to do is open the dialogue and move the needle on how we talk about this history – how we are honest about this history, which has become mythologized because of our wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, but, it – people don't know the actual history. A lot of times they only know that – the history that they learn in third grade, said Michele Pecoraro, executive director of Plymouth 400, Inc. • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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