Federal Judge: 1866 Treaty Allows Black Creeks To Sue Muscogee Creek Nation For Citizenship

Photos: YouTube Screenshots On January 8, 2024, D. Edward Snow, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, reaffirmed that Article 2 of Treaty of 1866 remains good law by writing, “It is clear from language of the Treaty of 1866, set forth above, the rights created in Article 2 are rights on par with those protected by the Constitution. Therefore, the undersigned Magistrate Judge agrees that Plaintiff has a right of action under Article II of the Treaty of 1866, and by virtue, the Thirteenth Amendment…against the MCN [Muscogee Creek Nation]” Article 2 of the Treaty of 1866 granted citizenship rights to “Creeks of African descent” (a/k/a Creek Freedmen or Black Creeks), a promise upheld for over a century. However, the Muscogee Creek Nation’s (“MCN”) racially motivated constitutional change in 1979 unjustly stripped Black Creek Freedmen of their MCN citizenship rights. An injustice affects over 100,000 United States citizens across various states, in very real and tangible ways. To this day, because of the MCN’s continuing racially discriminatory expulsion and continuing exclusion, Creek Freedmen are being denied access to resources that are necessary to meet needs as fundamental as housing, food, clothing, education, healthcare, and childcare, and...