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\r\n<\/p>\r\nThe chief of one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States is fighting a behind-the-scenes battle with Congress that pits racial justice against tribal sovereignty.\r\n
<\/p>\r\nGary Batton, chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, says he\u2019s trying to head off efforts by powerful legislators who want to cut housing funds for his tribe unless the Choctaw change their citizenship rules. The fight spilled into public view last year, when Batton circulated a letter he wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi<\/a> insisting that Congress stay out of deciding who qualifies as Choctaw. Batton warned that language some members are trying to include in a routine housing reauthorization bill would amount to \u201cholding hostage housing assistance otherwise due the Choctaw Nation.\u201d\r\n <\/p>\r\nBatton\u2019s letter was a rare public acknowledgement that some members of Congress are using the housing bill to force the Choctaw and other Native nations to recognize as citizens the descendants of people enslaved by tribal members.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThose descendants, known as Freedmen, were promised tribal citizenship by treaty after the U.S. Civil War. They\u2019re still seeking it today.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe Choctaw Nation\u2019s \u201ccontinued disenfranchisement of Freedmen descendants is a carefully disguised system of hidden anti-Black racism,\u201d wrote Angela Walton-Raji, a Freedmen researcher and genealogist, in her own letter to Pelosi<\/a>. Walton-Raji, like many Freedmen, is the descendant of Choctaw citizens and enslaved Africans, and considers herself Choctaw. But Walton-Raji says she\u2019s being denied citizenship because she\u2019s Black.\r\n <\/P>\r\n <\/P>\r\nBatton, whose 200,000-member nation is not only the third-largest tribe in the country but one of the wealthiest, insists that the fight is about sovereignty. Congress, he wrote, is for all intents and purposes coercing the Choctaw Nation into violating its own tribal constitution in favor of adopting policies approved by U.S. elected officials.\r\n <\/p>\r\nFederally recognized tribes are sovereign nations, with power to determine who\u2019s a citizen. But Walton-Raji said that, because the nation won\u2019t reconsider its race-based enrollment criteria, Freedmen have nowhere to turn but Congress.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe language some members of Congress want introduced into the reauthorization of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act<\/a> (NAHASDA) would force the Choctaw and other nations to enroll Freedmen if the tribes want to continue receiving essential tribal housing funds. These efforts to change the language are led by California Democrat and House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, who\u2019s also a past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.\r\n <\/p>\r\nA version of the bill without the language Batton is fighting \u2014 sponsored by New Mexico representative and likely future interior secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo \u2014 failed to pass last year. Tribal governments say the bill badly needs updating.\r\n <\/P>\r\nDoes the Choctaw Nation have the sovereign right to retain discriminatory policies, or does the U.S. have the right to intervene on behalf of Freedmen? And in the case of the latter, are tribal housing funds the appropriate vehicle for this intervention?\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\nBatton\u2019s letter has once again brought into the public eye the history of slavery by the Five Tribes. It also inadvertently shined a light on efforts by the descendants of those who were enslaved to become tribal members. Freedmen descendants have had some success achieving recognition from other former slave-owning tribes, notably the Cherokee Nation. But the Choctaw have consistently resisted recognizing Freedmen as citizens, even in a time when society is pushing back against systemic racism.\r\n <\/p>\r\n\u201cMaybe they think that if they keep the Freedmen out long enough, younger generations will just forget and say \u2018oh well, we\u2019re just gonna go be Black people here,\u2019\u201d said Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendents of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association, an organization representing the estimated hundreds of thousands of Freedmen descendants<\/a> living today. Vann, a Cherokee Freedmen descendant who also has Choctaw Freedmen ancestry, successfully fought for Cherokee citizenship. She\u2019s now running for the Tribal Council of the Cherokee Nation. She says tribal identity is as important to Freedmen as Black identity.\r\n <\/P>\r\nWhile Choctaw citizens don\u2019t receive direct payments from the tribal government, a large share of the Nation\u2019s revenues goes toward member services including healthcare, scholarships, and home ownership assistance for enrolled citizens. Formal enrollment can help with finding jobs and government contracts and allows tribal citizens to market their goods as Native art. Part of the reason the Choctaw Nation won\u2019t enroll Freedmen, Vann says, is \u201cnot wanting to share in any of the wealth coming from the casinos, or compete with the Freedmen regarding any kind of contracts.\u201d\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\nBut above all else, Vann and Walton-Raji say enrollment is about meaningful participation in the community. \r\n <\/p>\r\nIn rural southeastern Oklahoma, says Walton-Raji, some people still living on their old land proudly self-identify as Black as well as Choctaw.\r\n <\/p>\r\nVann says Freedmen can volunteer to cook at community events or to help repair buildings, but can\u2019t vote or run for office. She calls this \u201cjust pure out-and-out racism,\u201d which persists even though some Choctaw citizens and Freedmen have family ties. \u201cI might go down and talk to my Black cousin, my Freedmen cousin, down at the rodeo,\u201d Vann says, mimicking a familiar refrain she has heard. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to talk to him over at the council house!\u201d\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is the only one of the Five Tribes to fully recognize and enroll Freedmen as citizens. Vann was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that resulted in a federal judge ordering the Cherokee to grant citizenship to Freedmen in 2017. The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma enrolls Freedmen, but doesn\u2019t give them full benefits of citizenship. As a result of the 2017 federal court decision, the Supreme Court of the Cherokee Nation last month struck the term \u201cby blood,\u201d which had been used to deny Freedmen citizenship, from the tribe\u2019s constitution and other laws.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe court wrote that the phrase is \u201cobsolete, and repugnant to the ideal of liberty.\u201d The decision, which drew praise from Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., could undercut objections to Freedmen participating in the tribe\u2019s affairs, like those to Vann\u2019s council candidacy. Walton-Raji says she hopes the Choctaw Nation will eventually follow suit.\r\n <\/p>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/09\/garybatton-scaled.jpg\")
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