(Published Wednesday, Jun 3, 2015)
The surviving sons of the late athlete Jim Thorpe are asking the US Supreme Court to rebury their dad on American-Indian land in Oklahoma instead of his current burial spot in Jim Thorpe, Carbon County. 2015
Jim Thorpe's surviving sons asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow them to pursue reburial of the famed athlete on American Indian land in Oklahoma.
Thorpe was laid to rest in Pennsylvania more than 60 years ago. Bill and Richard Thorpe have been fighting to move the body to Sac and Fox land in the state of Thorpe's birth, saying their father wanted to be buried in Oklahoma.
The sons, along with the Sac and Fox Nation, asked the Supreme Court to decide that the town of Jim Thorpe, which named itself for the athlete in a deal with his third wife, falls under a 1990 law intended to rectify the historic plundering of American Indian burial grounds. Such a ruling would allow them to pursue repatriation.
"This case represents a long struggle by Indian people and tribes to have their religious practices, burial customs, culture and beliefs respected," one of their lawyers, Stephen Ward, said Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment