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Black members of Oklahoma Native American tribe file federal lawsuit to gain citizenship rights
The lawsuit says tribal leaders are defying a 2025 court order and blocking rights for Freedmen descendants who were denied citizenship in 2019.
- On Thursday, Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy filed a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma City against Principal Chief David Hill and the Muscogee Nation Citizenship Board, seeking to force the tribe to issue citizenship cards.
- The dispute centers on an 1866 treaty granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people, which the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court ordered the tribe to uphold in July 2025, rejecting constitutional restrictions based on the 1900 Dawes Rolls.
- Despite that 2025 ruling, Hill blocked the board from issuing citizenship cards last August, denying Grayson and Kennedy their "right to vote and the ability to participate fully as members of the Nation," according to the lawsuit.
- Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons noted about 100,000 Black Creeks reside across the United States, while similar legal challenges secured citizenship for Freedmen descendants in the Cherokee Nation and the Seminole Nation.
- Grayson, president of the Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band, told reporters Thursday, "The fight is bigger than every one of us." It belongs to every descendant who has protected this history.
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Associated Press News+29 Reposted by 29 other sources
Black members of Oklahoma Native American tribe file federal lawsuit to gain citizenship rights
Two descendants of Black people once enslaved by a Native American tribe are asking a federal court in Oklahoma to force tribal leaders to issue them citizenship cards as ordered a year ago by a tribal court.
·New York, United States
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'We just want to come home': Freedmen sue Muscogee Nation in federal court
Exactly one year after the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court ruled that Creek Freedmen are entitled to tribal citizenship, plaintiffs Rhonda Grayson and Jeff Kennedy filed a lawsuit against Principal Chief David Hill in federal court Thursday, with their attorney revealing Hill has refused to meet with them for more than three years. Grayson and Kennedy […] The post ‘We just want to come home’: Freedmen sue Muscogee Nation in federal court appeared …
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Total News Sources34
Leaning Left10Leaning Right4Center16Last UpdatedBias Distribution54% Center
Bias Distribution
- 54% of the sources are Center
54% Center
L 33%
C 54%
13%
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