Theda Perdue Shares Her Book, The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears
On UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 22, at 9:30 PM

All Cherokees once lived in the southern Appalachians. They spoke four, mutually-intelligible dialects of an Iroquoian language. A common culture and bonds of kinship held their far-flung villages together and made them a people. Today, most Cherokees do not live in the Southeast; they live in eastern Oklahoma with only a small remnant remaining in the mountains of western North Carolina.

This relocation of the Cherokees was not by choice. In the early nineteenth century, the United States government forced the Cherokee Nation to surrender its homeland and move west of the Mississippi—a journey forever known as the Trail of Tears. Theda Perdue and long-time collaborator Michael D. Green apply their expertise to a fascinating, and, at times, heartbreaking chapter in American history with their book, The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears.

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin, premiering Friday, August 22, at 9:30 PM, co-author Theda Perdue brings to life The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears and the historic struggles that defined The Trail of Tears as a Cherokee and American tragedy.

Recently appointed to a Guggenheim Fellowship last month, Theda Perdue is a Distinguished Term Professor of History, University of North Carolina, and Chapel Hill. An expert in the field of American Indian history, she also won the Southern Association of Women’s Historians’ Julia Cherry Spruill Award and the Southern Anthropological Society’s James Mooney Prize. She served as President of the American Society for Ethno history and from 2003-4 she was a fellow at the National Humanities Center.

Don’t miss DG Martin’s all-new interview with Theda Perdue on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 22, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, August 24, at 5 PM.

During the 26-week season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Frances Mayes (A Year in the World), Rob Christensen (The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics), Robert Morgan (Boone), Eleanora Tate (Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance), Eric Wilson (Against Happiness), Wayne Caldwell (Cataloochee), Bernie Harberts (Too Proud to Ride a Cow), Jean Anderson (A Love Affair with Southern Cooking), Joe Glatthaar (General Lee's Army), Tony Earley (The Blue Star), JD Rhoades (Breaking Cover), Therese Fowler (Souvenir), Cindy Ramsey (Boys of the Battleship North Carolina), Anna Rubino (Queen of the Oil Club), Nancy Peacock (A Broom of One's Own), Louise Hawes(Black Pearls), and Nortin Hadler (Worried Sick).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.