For Immediate Release: October 1, 2008

Tracing Your Native American Family Roots is Theme of
Native American Culture Day at the Oakland Public Library

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( Oakland, CA)—All are welcome to attend the Oakland Public Library’s 17th Annual Native American Culture Day on Saturday, October 25, 2008, from noon-5 p.m. at the César E. Chávez Branch. The event will include Native speakers, performers, dancers, artwork and films. Chavez Branch is at 3301 East 12th Street, Second Floor, near the Fruitvale BART station. 

The theme this year is "Tracing Your Native American Family Roots." Particular emphasis is on the cultural and ancestral connection that Native Americans and African Americans share. Special guests include Terry Ligon, creator of the Estelusti Foundation and co-creator of the Choctaw-Chicasaw Freedmen Project, and Don Little Cloud Davenport, leader of the Black Native American Association. John Berry, Native American Studies Librarian at UC Berkeley's Ethnic Studies Library, will also speak about Native American issues. Oakland's own Medicine Warriors Dance Troupe and All Nations Singers will be the host dancers and drummers, as they have been in years past. Flautist Wally Johnson will perform. 

Native American Culture Day has been sponsored by the Native American Services Committee of the Oakland Public Library since 1991. Past themes have included “Black Native Americans,” “Pomo Massascre: Bloody Island,” and “Honoring Native Women Survivors of Breast Cancer.”

Please contact the Main Library at (510) 238-3134 for more information, or see the Oakland Public Library’s Web site: www.oaklandlibrary.org. Please refrain from wearing scented products to library events. To request sign interpretation or other accommodation, please call the number above or (510) 834-7446 (TTY) at least five working days prior to the event. The Oakland Public Library is a department of the City of Oakland

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