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.
Background
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City on behalf of Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy names Principal Chief David Hill and the Muscogee Nation Citizenship Board as defendants. It says that Hill and the citizenship board are violating an 1866 treaty between the tribe and the U.S. government by refusing to recognize Black Creek Freedmen as citizens as ordered by the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court in July 2025.
The board had denied the applications of Grayson and Kennedy in 2019 because they could not identify a lineal descendant of the tribe, but the court said the pair are entitled to tribal citizenship. However, Hill and the board have not yet issued the citizenship cards, denying Grayson and Kennedy their “right to vote and the ability to participate fully as members of the Nation,” according to the lawsuit.
Implications
Last August, Hill blocked the tribe’s citizenship board from issuing citizenship cards until leaders decide how to change the tribe’s constitution. The tribe’s headquarters is in Okmulgee, about 100 miles northeast of Oklahoma City. The Muscogee Nation is one of five tribes in Oklahoma that once practiced slavery.
Under the 1866 treaty, the tribe abolished slavery and granted citizenship to the formerly enslaved. The Muscogee Nation adopted in 1979 a constitution that restricted membership to the descendants of people listed as “Muscogee (Creek) Indians by blood” on the Dawes Rolls, a census of members of the five tribes created around 1900.
The court’s 2025 ruling also directed the board to apply the treaty of 1866 to future applicants who can trace an ancestor to either roll. The decision could create a path to tribal citizenship for thousands of new members who are not Muscogee by blood.
Original reporting: Oklahoma City News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
