Irish Potato Famine, a group of Choctaws collected $710 and sent it to help starving Irish men, women and children. "It had been just 16 years since the Choctaw people had experienced the Trail of Tears, and they had faced starvation… It was an amazing gesture. By today's standards, it might be a million dollars." according to Judy Allen, editor of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's newspaper, Bishinik, based at the Oklahoma Choctaw tribal headquarters in Durant, Okla. To mark the 150th anniversary, eight Irish people retraced the Trail of Tears. [2]
That gesture by the Choctaw brings to mind something recounted on Letterman the night he resumed his show some weeks after 9/11. A farming/ranching community in Montana, which had been afflicted by drought for a few years at that point, took up a collection for the victims in NY. Letterman added, "If that doesn't tell you what you need to know about America, I can't help you."