Pease Park Conservancy

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A Conversation with Josie and Jo Sue

Pease Park

A Conversation with Josie and Jo Sue, citizens of the Cherokee Nation Who Love Pease Park

Jo Sue and her daughter Josie, both citizens of the Cherokee Nation who live in Austin and regularly spend time in Pease Park, are helping us at Pease Park Conservancy think through how to honor and recognize the storied history of this land. We want Indigenous People to feel acknowledged and included and the entire Austin community to learn and reflect on the past, present, and future of Indigenous Cultures. We want to center Native voices and Jo Sue and Josie agreed to share their insights with us here as a part of Native American Heritage Month.

PPC: Jo Sue and Josie, tell us a little bit about your story and history and what brought you to Austin.

Jo Sue: I grew up in Vinita, Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory, where my great great grandfather established his home after being forcibly removed from the Southeast United States on what became known as the Trail of Tears. My great great grandfather, along with some of his children and siblings, are buried outside Vinita on land that was deeded to Cherokee members before the US government took back the very land to which the Cherokee were removed and allowed white settlers to claim it.

I graduated from University of Oklahoma and my first job was as a hospital pharmacist in Galveston, Texas where I met my late husband, Earl Howard, a Texan by birth. After he finished his medical training, we moved to Austin and established a home a few blocks from Pease Park where we raised our daughter, Josie.

Trail Of Tears

In 1838, Cherokee people were forcibly moved from their homeland and relocated to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. They resisted their Removal by creating their own newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, as a platform for their views. They sent their educated young men on speaking tours throughout the United States. They lobbied Congress, and created a petition with more than 15,000 Cherokee signatures against Removal. They took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that they were a sovereign nation in Worcester vs. Georgia (1832). President Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court decision, enforced his Indian Removal Act of 1830, and pushed through the Treaty of New Echota.

In 1838, Cherokee people were forcibly taken from their homes, incarcerated in stockades, forced to walk more than a thousand miles, and removed to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. More than 4,000 died and many are buried in unmarked graves along “The Trail Where They Cried.”

Source: cherokeemuseum.com

Josie: I was five years old when we moved to Austin and I first began to spend time in Pease Park. Both my mom and I have many fond memories of time spent in Pease Park - both using the trails regularly as well as community gatherings held at the iconic picnic tables in what is now known as Kingsbury Commons. My most vivid memories are of attending the then nascent Eeyore’s Birthday Party in my Pippi Longstocking and Wonder Woman costumes.

PPC: Can you share with us your connection to Pease Park and what your experience has been in Pease Park throughout your time here in Austin?

Josie: I moved back to Austin over this past summer after many decades living elsewhere. One of the first things I did was to renew my connection to Pease Park, as it has played such a prominent place in my childhood. I really wanted to introduce my husband, a South African by birth who was raised in Canada, and my seven year old daughter to this land with which I felt such a connection. One of the first things I did before moving was to go online to the Pease Park Conservancy website and was deeply hurt when I read the history of the park which depicted its original Native inhabitants as savage aggressors. I immediately reached out to Allison (PPC Communications Manager), whom to my great relief and surprise, changed the text on the website almost immediately to more accurately tell the history of the Native experience on this land.

PPC: This land where Pease Park sits was once home to the Lipan Apache, Tonkawa, and Comanche Nations. These native people were forcibly removed from Central Texas, predominately to reservations in Oklahoma, where they continued to lose access to land and resources. How does it feel to visit this public green space today and to reflect back on Native People’s experiences in this area?

Josie: It’s a mixed experience. There’s joy to seeing a public space that is open and welcoming to all people, but there’s also a great sadness knowing the cruel history that this land has seen. I am hopeful though that there is a way that public spaces like Pease Park can take an active role in bringing people together around the Truth and Reconciliation process that could foster significant healing.

PPC: How can the community hold ourselves accountable to restoring the relationships interrupted by colonization - either relationships with the land or between each other?

Josie: First, an accurate telling of history - one which most Americans are unfamiliar with. I think that by organizations such as Pease Park Conservancy taking a leadership role, they can model a new path for the community. There is currently work under way on a Truth and Reconciliation movement which is a first step to acknowledging the atrocities we as Americans have inflicted. I really believe the first step towards accountability is visibility - it’s time for an accurate history to be taught in schools and land acknowledgements are an important first step as well.

There is much to be learned from Indigenous cultures (which are not one homogenous group) - including a sense of responsibility to the land and all living beings as well as a focus on the community welfare rather than the individual. We can start from a place of humility and go from there.

My colleagues in the Native American Health Alliance compiled a wonderful list of ways to be a good settler: acknowledging that one is a guest in someone else’s land, growing ones awareness of the current causes and political actions of local Native people while always approaching this with cultural humility and respect, donating time, money, and resources to aid in tribal community work, and educating colleagues, family, and neighbors.

In terms of Pease Park, I think we can start by learning the history of the land - of its inhabitants and what has happened to them. We can start by asking “where did my ancestors come from and how did they come to be on this land” so that we can begin to understand and acknowledge the current residents’ relation to Indigenous Peoples and the land we now inhabit.

PPC: How do you celebrate your Native American Heritage and pass on traditions and stories in your family?

Josie: As a child, my grandmother repeatedly told me stories of the Trail of Tears and the forcible removal of our ancestors from their land. She always focused on their strength and resilience in this process and took great pride in this. We frequently visited the capital of the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah and attended pow wows in the summer. While living in San Francisco, where there is a significant urban Native population, I have taken my daughter to pow wows and attended the annual sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz Island on Thanksgiving morning. At home, we also read children’s story books by Native authors and have shared these with my daughter’s schools.

PPC: Do you have recommendations for people who would like to learn more about local Indigenous Cultures and history - books, local events, and organizations to learn from?

Locally, there’s the Austin Pow Wow, Great Promise for American Indians, and Red Voices in schools.

Nationally, some of my favorites include Illuminatives, which is a great resource for educational materials. and the Native American Boarding School Coalition is a great resource for education on the historical use of boarding schools in the cultural genocide of Native Americans which continued until shockingly recently and has caused immeasurable multigenerational trauma.

More resources provided by Josie & Jo Sue:

Immediate Actions To Take:

  • Sign the Petition to Stop Line 3

  • Download the Native Land App — App Store 

  • Pay Voluntary Land Taxes to recognize our access to stolen Indigenous Land

  • Advocate for LANDBACK

  • Support No More Native Mascots 

  • Support activists traveling to northern Minnesota to work with Indigenous water protectors to stop the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline — Cashapp: $dcmnwaterprotector  l  Venmo: dcmnwaterprotector

Organizations To Support + Follow:

Educate Yourself + Keep Showing Up:

  • #StandingRockSyllabus

  • 8 Global Actions You Should Know About, Dec 2020 — The Chapter House 

  • Adventures in Feministory: Wilma Mankiller by Kjerstin Johnson — Bitch Media 

  • Alarmed by Scope of Wildfires, Officials Turn to Native Americans for Help by Jill Cown — NYTimes

  • Colonialism, Explained by Jamila Osman — Teen Vogue 

  • How Do You Fight the Coronavirus Without Running Water? by George McGraw — NYTimes

  • How To Address Native American Issues as a Non-Native: A Resource for Allies — Native Hope eBook

  • It’s 2020. Indigenous Team Names in Sports Have to Go. by Kurt Streeter — NYTimes

  • LANDBACK Manifesto — LANDBACK

  • Mobilizing an Indigenous Green New Deal — NDN Collective 

  • Pandemic Highlights Deep-Rooted Problems in Indian Health Service by Mark Walker — NYTimes

  • Respect Hawaii’s sacred land. — Anti-Racism Daily

  • Should We Rethink Thanksgiving? By Nicole Daniels — NYTimes

  • Standing Rock Syllabus — NYC Stands with Standing Rock

  • Support the land back movement — Anti-Racism Daily

  • Syllabus: Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee Citizenship, and DNA Testing — Critical Ethnic Studies

  • The Place Hit Hardest by the Virus by Adam Ferguson — NYTimes 

  • The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Looks This Year by Brett Anderson — NYTimes 

  • Treaties Between the United States and Indigenous Nations, Explained by Ruth Hopkins — Teen Vogue

Books

Listen

  • Listen to Indigenous People by Phoebe Lett — NYTimes

  • All My Relations — Podcast

  • This Land — Podcast

Watch

  • Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner — Apple TV+

  • Cultural Appropriations Negative Impact on North American Indigenous Peoples — Slow Factory Foundation

  • Drunktown’s Finest — YouTube

  • Accompanying Read: ‘Drunktown’s Finest’ Director Sydney Freeland on Growing Up Navajo and Trans by David Graver — VICE

  • Four Sheets to the Wind — Tubi

  • Hesapa, a Landback Film — LANDBACK

  • Native American Stories — Netflix 

  • On The Ice — Available for Rent

  • Reservation Dogs — Hulu

  • Shimasani — Available for Rent

  • Standing Rock Syllabus NYC Teach In — YouTube

  • Tara Houska: The Standing Rock resistance and our fight for Indigenous rights — TED