Rhonda Grayson and Jeff Kennedy appeared with their legal team which included Damario Solomon Simmons over the course of a two-day trial. Both plaintiffs are seeking citizenship into the tribal nation nearly three years after filing their case.
Black Creeks, descendants of the Muscogee Creek Freedmen, prepare for a court hearing as they seek to reclaim their tribal citizenship rights in the Creek Nation. | TAG24
Nancy Marie Spears, a Gaylord News reporter based in Washington, is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of
Established back in 1979, the Muscogee Creek Freedmen Band provides a number of educational services, from holding programs and meetings to genealogy workshops, conferences and even a traveling exhibit, which was exhibited at the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, the Oklahoma Metropolitan Library and more.
Grayson’s true life goal, though, is to help secure indigenous rights for herself and her fellow Black Creeks, whose citizenships, identities, voting rights and access to federally funded programs were revoked in 1979 after the Muscogee Nation disenfranchised the Freedmen with the adoption of a new Constitution that required a blood quantum a measurement of how much Indian blood a person had reorganizing the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act s authority.