"the People's Paths!" Cherokee News Path - Freedmen Attempt to Halt Election Denied

TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma – A federal judge denied a motion on June 13 to stop the Cherokee Nation’s general election to be held on June 23 which will decide the tribe’s principal chief, deputy chief and Tribal Council positions.

The motion for a preliminary injunction in May was filed by a group of six Freedmen and was denied by U.S. District Judge Henry K. Kennedy Jr. The Freedmen are descendants of black slaves that were owned by Cherokees or free blacks that were living in Indian Territory after the American Civil War.

In the motion, the plaintiffs asked for the election stoppage claiming their right to vote in the election was limited and that they were being treated unfairly.

“If there was any election where any other group of people were severely limited in being able to go to the polls and exercise their legal right, I think everyone would be up in arms,” Marilyn Vann, president of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of Five Civilized Tribes, said.

Kennedy wrote that he denied the injunction because the CN District Court reinstated the Freedmen as citizens and returned their right to vote in May and because the Bureau of Indian Affairs had approved the upcoming election.

“On May 14, 2007, after the Freedmen filed the instant motion, the District Court of the Cherokee Nation issued a temporary injunction ordering the Nation to ‘immediately reinstate to full citizenship with the Cherokee Nation the Plaintiffs and all similarly situated persons commonly known as Cherokee Freedmen,’” he wrote. “In the light of these recent events, the court concludes the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction should be denied.”

Principal Chief Chad Smith said he was pleased with Kennedy’s ruling because it respects the CN District Court’s ruling.

“We have said that this group’s effort to stop the election was a remedy in search of a wrong, as all eligible non-Indian Freedmen citizens of the Cherokee Nation can vote in this election,” he said. “We’re also pleased that his decision respects our tribal court decisions and the more than 300 non-Indian Freedmen who won a ruling in our tribal court to participate in the June 23 election.”

Cherokee voters on March 3 voted in a special election to amend the tribe’s constitution to remove about 2,800 Freedmen and about 10 descendants of intermarried whites from the tribal rolls.

Following the Freedmen’s motion to halt the June 23 election, Diane Hammons, the CN attorney general, agreed to a temporary injunction in CN District Court allowing the Freedmen to regain their citizenship while they appeal the March 3 election.