Terry also shared a major writing initiative called Vignettes of Indian Territory. This will consist of a series of family stories of Freedman families long with photos of those who were enrolled on the Dawes Roll from the Five Tribes out of Oklahoma. His goal is to bring 10-15 family stories to light. He has initiated a Call for Papers in a the Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Facebook groups and is now seeking permissions to use photos that have been shared and tweaking the submission that he already has. And of course with so much documentation on the history of the Freedmen there is a need for so many more publications.

Terry mentioned several leaders, James Coody Johnson, Charles Cohee, Sallie Walton (my Sallie), who led me to my research on the Freedmen. At the present time, Terry will be creating an E-book about the Freedman families, and he is the process of cleaning up the narratives. So this is a first volume. For those who would like to contribute to the effort, he is seeking the following: 1) 500 word biography of a Freedman ancestor, 2) a photo of the ancestor, 3) permission to use the submissions, 4) the Dawes card number. The deadline to tie it all together is February 15th 2019.

My goal this year is to write and to publish! I have two projects about to emerge in terms of publications. I hope by the first half of the year I will be able to share them. And speaking of books—congratulations to James Morgan III,  for his new book, “The Lost Empire. Black Freemasonry in the Old West.” I am of course interested because I have family from the western frontier. But this is of interest to me, because I have ancestors who were masons. Many don’t know that the activities of the masconic groups were active leaders of the black community prior to the Civil Rights movement. These are groups of individuals who left their mark on the community. Those of us who know James, know that he can bring forth amazing proceedings from annual meetings. He has shared with me speeches made by one of my ancetors at a national meeting. He has a promising future and has really developed his niche! We should all do the same.