Muscogee court affirms Freedmen descendants' citizenship

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation supreme court ruled in July that descendants of people once enslaved by the tribe are entitled to tribal citizenship, according to reporting by the Guardian. The court found that the nation’s citizenship board violated an 1866 treaty when it denied enrollment applications from Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy in 2019.

The board had argued that the two were ineligible because their ancestors, although they appeared on the Freedmen Roll, did not appear on the Muscogee Roll. The court ruled unanimously that such exclusions violated Muscogee law. As a result of the decision, all future applicants who can trace their ancestry to either roll will be eligible for enrollment.