Navajo Code Talker exhibit slated for MCC Dec., Jan.
13th November 2009
The Navajo Code Talkers are credited with helping to turn the tide in the Pacific during World War II. Their story is coming to Mohave County for all to share in pictures and prose.
The largest, most comprehensive exhibition on the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II will be on display in the Art Gallery, Room 204 on Mohave Community College’s Lake Havasu City campus at 1977 Acoma Blvd., W., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, Dec. 1 through 18 and Jan. 4-8.
A special opening reception is slated in the Gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. on Dec. 1. Refreshments will be served and the public is invited.
This exhibit traces the story of the famed United States Marine Corps Navajo Code Talkers. It begins with the original pilot group of 29 volunteers who, in 1942, developed and tested the original Navajo code.
When the code proved fast and accurate, the Marine Corps recruited nearly 400 more Navajos who utilized the code to send and receive encrypted messages throughout the Pacific island campaign. The uniqueness of the Navajo language baffled Japanese cryptographers and greatly helped in the effort to win the war in the Pacific. The exhibit is a tribute to those men.
Originally done as a verbal history project by students from Wingate High School at Ft. Wingate, New Mexico, this exhibit speaks volumes about the pride young Navajos have for their heroes.
The traveling exhibit displays more than 33 historic photographs with text, facsimiles of original WW II military documents, a map of the Navajo Reservation (c.1940) and the (now declassified) Navajo Code itself.
In addition, the full-length documentary, “Navajo Code Talkers” produced by the Arts & Entertainment/History Channel will be running throughout open gallery hours for additional enrichment to the exhibition.
The Southwest Inaugural Tour 2007-2010 of “Our Fathers, Our Grandfathers, Our Heroes…The Navajo Code Talker of World War II” was made possible with grants from the New Mexico Humanities Council, PNM, and APS corporations, Arizona Humanities Council, and the Navajo Generating Station/Salt River Project, Ariz.
For more information about the traveling exhibition, produced and circulated by the Circle of Light Navajo Educational Project in Gallup, New Mexico, call (505) 726-8030 or e-mail travelexhibits@yahoo.com.
For more information about the exhibit at MCC, contact Diana Parker, MCC’s Lake Havasu City college recruitment officer, at 928-505-3393.