On Oct. 31, President Donald Trump proclaimed November 2017 as Native American Heritage Month. He stated that all Americans should celebrate this month. Even though November has gone, you can still read the proclamation by searching the internet for American Indian Heritage Month 2017. Also, there was a wonderful PBS documentary on Nov. 15 about Johnny Cash's "Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian." You may still be able to find it on the internet.

In a letter to the editor on Nov. 20, Ron Wasmuth wrote that our Florida government wants to ban the Confederate flag and monuments because they remind us of slavery, and then it introduced a House Bill 67 to erect a monument on the Capitol grounds to remind us of slavery ["Life inside Florida’s political circus"]. Lakeland has already voted to move our Confederate monument in Munn Park.

Why do we want to destroy history? Too much history has already been lost.

The Indian Removal Act of 1838 has already been forgotten. Native Americans in the east were forced on a march west in what became known as the Trail of Tears in which thousands died. The book "The Trail of Tears" is still available in the Lakeland Public Library.

My great-grandparents were Cherokee, and I am proud of my Native American heritage. My ancestors only survived being captured and marched on the Trail of Tears by fleeing their homes and farms and hiding in the Okefenokee Swamp near Macclenny where my mother was born.

Dorothy Costine Sawyer, Lakeland