Alfre Woodard, Greenwood Cultural Center honor Osage Nation with Legacy Award

Woodard made that point Thursday night at the Greenwood Cultural Center’s 2024 Legacy Award Dinner, where she presented the center’s Legacy Award to the Osage Nation.

“On behalf of the Osage Nation, I proudly accept this award, which will go into our museum because it belongs to all of our people,” said Geoffrey Standing Bear, principal chief of the Osage Nation.

The center’s executive director, Frances Jordan-Rakestraw, thanked Woodard for making time in her busy schedule to come home and present the award. Woodard, an Academy Award-nominated actress who has won four Emmys, was born and raised in Tulsa.

Woodard said it is only recently — 100 years after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and a spree of Osage murders — that people around America and the world have learned about those tragedies.

“As we all know, the film ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ brought the story of the terrible Osage killings to life,” she said. “Yet, to me, the most important aspects of that film were the moments when Martin Scorsese smartly, simply pointed the camera at the brilliant Osage actors and the compelling Osage culture and allowed them to shine.”

Woodard talked about the importance of recognizing and mourning the losses and trauma inflicted upon the Osage: “While we must remember and weep for the senseless deaths brought by greed, we must also and always shine our collective light on the profound heritage of the Osage people.”

Continuing, she said, “I am charged to acknowledge and lift up the Osage Nation and the Osage people. Your lineage, your history, your culture, your values, your community, your past, your present and your future are far deeper and brighter and more powerful than any of the tragedies that have befallen your people.

“As you well know, your history is not a tale of tremendous hardship, dislocation and sorrow. It is a remarkable story of extraordinary determination, ability, resistance and resilience. It is a story of the true power of love.”

The dinner began with music. Composer Scott George and Osage singers and dancers performed the Academy Award-winning song “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People).” The performance generated a standing ovation.

A news advisory about the event said the Legacy Award was being presented to the Osage Nation to salute the history and heritage of the tribe, central to the award-winning film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and the importance of crafting and sharing an inclusive history — a people’s history — of the United States.

The dinner had a reunion feel because Woodard and Standing Bear walked the same hallways at Bishop Kelley High School.

“Back then, I just knew him as that nice-looking boy, Geoff, who was one grade behind me,” Woodard said. “And even then he was thinking his own thoughts and following his own voice.

“I imagine back then the Standing Bear family and the wider Osage community saw this great grandson of Osage Principal Chief Fred Lookout as a child full of promise. I imagine they hoped and prayed and worked to make sure he had the chance to live up to that promise. And he certainly has.”

The Legacy Award Dinner is the Greenwood Cultural Center’s single annual fundraising event. The center relies on the dinner to provide vital financial support needed to continue its critical historical, cultural and educational work in the Tulsa community.

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