The Nation - News from Aug. 7, 1988

A Cherokee Indian, pointing to reparations paid to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, filed suit against the federal government for uprooting his ancestors in the forced march known as the Trail of Tears. “I’ve always said if they pay the Japanese, they should pay us,” said Woodrow W. Bussey, who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on his own behalf. On Thursday, the House passed legislation to give $20,000 each to surviving Japanese-Americans who were forced into internment camps. President Reagan has said he will sign the $1.2-billion bill. Bussey, 71, said he has not yet found a lawyer to handle the case. In the fall of 1838, federal troops gathered Cherokees from throughout the South and forced them on a 116-day march across the country to Oklahoma.