A federal lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City on behalf of Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy against Principal Chief David Hill and the Muscogee Nation Citizenship Board. The plaintiffs seek to compel tribal leadership to issue citizenship cards as directed by the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court approximately one year prior.
According to the lawsuit, 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. The Muscogee Nation Supreme Court had ruled that Grayson and Kennedy are entitled to tribal citizenship, though the citizenship board had previously denied their applications in 2019 on grounds they could not identify a lineal descendant of the tribe. The refusal to issue citizenship cards has prevented the applicants from voting and participating fully as members of the nation, the lawsuit states.
In August of the prior year, Principal Chief Hill blocked the citizenship board from issuing cards pending a constitutional revision decision by tribal leaders. The Muscogee Nation responded with a statement Thursday afternoon, noting it had not yet been served with the complaint. The tribe stated that matters of Muscogee governance should be addressed through its own governmental institutions and emphasized the importance of following the nation’s constitution and laws fairly and consistently.
The 1866 treaty required the Muscogee Nation to abolish slavery and grant citizenship to formerly enslaved people. However, the tribe adopted a 1979 constitution limiting membership to descendants of people listed as “Muscogee (Creek) Indians by blood” on the Dawes Rolls, an early 1900s census that listed Muscogee members and Freedmen on separate rolls. The 2025 court decision directed the board to apply the 1866 treaty to future applicants tracing ancestry to either roll, potentially opening a path to citizenship for thousands of additional members.
Two other of the five Oklahoma tribes that previously practiced slavery—the Seminole Nation and Cherokee Nation—have already granted citizenship to Freedmen descendants following successful legal challenges. Attorneys estimate approximately 100,000 Black Creeks reside across the United States.
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