Last One Walking: The Life of Cherokee Community Leader Charlie Soap - Hardcover

Shaw, Greg

 
9780806194721: Last One Walking: The Life of Cherokee Community Leader Charlie Soap
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0806194723 ISBN 13: 9780806194721
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2024

Synopsis

You probably know the story of the late Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to serve as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. You might not recognize the name of her husband, Charlie Soap, yet his role as a Native community organizer is no less significant. Combining memoir, history, and current affairs, Last One Walking charts for the first time the life and work of this influential Cherokee.

In telling this story, author and former journalist Greg Shaw gives voice to his sources. As a longtime colleague and friend of the family, he draws on his many travels and interviews with Soap and on previously unpublished writings, including a Soap family history penned by Mankiller, included here as the book’s prologue. Shaw offers a rich profile of Soap’s singular career—particularly as a champion of water rights.

In managing public infrastructure projects, housing assistance, and water development in the Cherokee Nation, Soap has exemplified ga-du-gi, the Cherokee word for community members working together for the collective good. Shaw portrays a dynamic partnership between Soap and Mankiller. Together they reignited community development for the Cherokee people by listening to everyone, including the poorest of the poor, and hearing their pleas for reliable water, a basic human need and a sacred element in Cherokee culture.

Charlie Soap’s name in Cherokee, Ohni ai (ᎣᏂ ᎠᎢ), translates as “the last one walking.” In the Cherokee wolf clan, this is the member who trails the rest of the pack to watch for danger and opportunity. The last one walking forms a bond of trust with the pack’s leader.

The Native American fight for land has been well chronicled, but the fight for water has not. Last One Walking helps to fill that void with a narrative that is also deeply moving, revealing on every page the spirit of ga-du-gi.

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About the Author

Oklahoma native Greg Shaw has reported for the Cherokee Advocate and served as an executive for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Publisher
University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date
2024
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0806194723
ISBN 13 
9780806194721
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
184