05/31/2026
I have talked about Tthe Black Freedmen Indian Treaties of 1866 numerous times in my lectures and videos. Many of our Ancestors were in these Treaties and received benefits from the 5 Civilized Tribes of Native Americans until they got pushed out of the Treaties. We need to enforce these like what just happened because they received some type of Reparations over 100 years ago. This ties into the origins of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa was founded by Creek Indians around 1834. When they go into Oklahoma, they took their African Slaves with them. Dr. Claud Anderson was trying to get rhe enforced for years. Thank you to Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons for continuing this fight. We have appeared on 'Roland Martin Unfiltered' together a few times previously. I want to have yiu on my show to discuss this. - Historian & National Political Commentator Michael Imhotep founder of The African History Network host of The African History Network Show
The Muscogee Nation Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that two descendants of people once enslaved by the tribe are entitled to tribal citizenship.
The court found that the tribal nation’s citizenship board violated an 1866 treaty when it denied the applications of Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy in 2019 because they could not identify a lineal descendant of the tribe.
“Are we, as a Nation, bound to treaty promises made so many years ago? Today, we answer in the affirmative, because this is what Mvskoke law demands,” the court wrote in its opinion.
The Muscogee Nation is one of five tribes in Oklahoma that once practiced slavery, and in that 1866 treaty with the U.S. government, the tribe both abolished it and granted citizenship to the formerly enslaved. But in 1979, the tribal nation adopted 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.
When the Dawes Rolls were created, people were listed on two separate rolls: those who were Muscogee and those who were identified by the U.S. government as Freedmen. In its ruling Wednesday, the court remanded the matter back to the Muscogee Nation's citizenship board and directed it to apply the Treaty of 1866 to Grayson and Kennedy's applications, as well as any future applicants who can trace an ancestor to either roll.
SOURCE:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/muscogee-nation-court-rules-descendants-enslaved-people-entitled-124013751
