Column: Strong woman leads the Muscogee Nation of Florida

Monday, June 20, 2011  

"The Muscogee Nation of Florida is a tiny aboriginal people of the Americas who seek to hold to their heritage while surviving the culture around them. The Muscogee are led by an indomitable woman named Ann Denson Tucker.

Tucker directs the Tribal Council, serves as the public face and living historian of her people, and plays the role of chaplain, social worker and attorney for the tribe. She has sought official recognition for the Florida Muscogee from the U.S. Department of Indian Affairs for many years. She doesn't want much more than that — just an acknowledgment of their existence. She sometimes wonders how long, if at all, that recognition will be in the making.

Yet, Tucker and the Muscogee do not need official recognition as a people to bear witness to their character. Recently, when many of her people and people in the greater community were hungry, unemployed and in need, she rescued an old portable school house from the county landfill to create a food pantry and community clothes closet.

Critics told her it was a fool's errand. What could one little food bank in the middle of the Florida woods really do to help alleviate poverty? Without official governmental recognition, how could she ever hope to sustain service? One particularly cranky faultfinder said publicly that the school-house-turned-food-bank would open "when pigs fly." But Tucker, as always, was undeterred."

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