BRIDGEPORT – The sound of motorcycles cranking up will reverb along the streets of Bridgeport this weekend.
And, from there, they’ll trek across North Alabama for the 32nd Trail of Tears Commemorative Motorcycle Ride.
And, it’s all in remembrance about a somber event in American history.
Every year tens of thousands of motorcyclists gather in the small Jackson County town for the start of the Alabama leg of the Trail of Tears commemorative motorcycle ride.
The motorcycle event is the largest organized motorcycle ride in the world. It has gathered as many as 150,000 motorcyclists producing a caravan as much as 50 miles long.
It was started to raise awareness to the Indian Removal Act of the 1830s and mark the specific Drane/Hood Overland Route from Ross Landing in Chattanooga to Waterloo in northwest Alabama.
The ride is in three segments: Today is Cherokee, N.C. to Bridgeport; Saturday is Bridgeport to Waterloo; and Sunday is from Spring Park in Tuscumbia to end Tuesday in Sulphur, Okla., the home of the Chicksaw Nation.
The riders travel along U.S. 72 across North Alabama including a stretch on I-565 through Huntsville.
The Huntsville Police Department’s Traffic Services Unit will support the participants as they travel through Huntsville and take a lunch break.
Drivers should anticipate delays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on some major roadways and I-565.
The ride is expected to arrive at Huntsville city limits around 9 a.m. Alabama Law Enforcement Agency troopers will escort the riders west on U.S. 72 and I-565 to the Greenbrier Parkway exit, where they will stop for a lunch break at Redstone Harley-Davidson until 12 p.m.
After lunch, the procession will continue north on Mooresville Road to U.S. 72.
Road closures will begin at 9 a.m. and reopen as each section clears.
Drivers are encouraged to exercise caution, follow officer directions and use alternate routes whenever possible.
The ride commemorates the event in history known as the “Trail of Tears” – a series of forced relocations of approximately 100,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government, known as the Indian Removal.
Members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations (including thousands of their black slaves) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern United States to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated “Indian Territory.”
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