Protecting the Right to Vote
This is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. He, or others like he, were more likely to vote, back when Ross Swimmer was just Principal Chief of a Cherokee Nation that had only had the collective franchise since Watergate, for anyone other than Ross. So Ross invented the "by blood" requirement, and began the Cherokee Freedmen disenfranchisement.
CNO elections are thin little things, 2% of the population, 15% of the electorate. The qualification to vote, the right to the franchise, is not limited to great property owners, or to hereditary sub-chiefs, but to the few who either hold jobs or housing directly from the CNO, or who believe that voting is worthwhile.
Wilma Mankiller too needed to suppress votes, so the "by blood" requirement rolled on. Joe Byrd didn't, but his fight with the Cherokee Courts were far more important than some fiction that didn't get him elected, and wouldn't get him re-elected. Finally, for Chad Smith, they are all that keep him from becoming a footnote in the history of voting in the Oklahoma Nations.
When I first visited Maine, there were no Indians there. Congress created them, then some more, and eventually we hope will create some more. When I left California, there were no Indians there too. Congress created those Indians too. When I worked on the Chiloquin District of the Klameth National Forest, the majority of the inhabitants of Chiloquin weren't Indians either. Congress had made them non-Indians in a termination act, with a settlement that was already memory when I got there. Becoming Indian, and Becoming Un-Indian, are things that happen to some. So when the Pechanga Band caught a civic disease and disenfranchised and exiled a third of the Band's membership, did the disenrollees cease to be Indians, or did they simply cease to be citizens of the Pechanga polity?
Is there a status that is "Federal Indian", yet is not a citizen of any Federally Recognized Indian Tribe? The current answer, in the US, is "no". In Canada, the answer is "yes".
With that intro, here's the press release that Marilyn Vann released, published in the Tulsa paper. For those who didn't read Wampum during the CNO election, we worked Stacy Leeds and Raymond Vann side of the fence, and Stacy and Raymond got 40% of the vote.
The Freedmen Band of Cherokee nation of Oklahoma will hold its next meeting Saturday July 19 2008 at the West Side Community Center, 501 S Bucy in Bartlesville Oklahoma.
The meeting will begain at 12:15pm. The organization educates freedmen tribal members and the general public on their rights and responsibilities as tribal members. Band officers Marilyn Vann and Vera Jones will update meeting attendants on their recent trip to Washington DC to visit members of Congress to request support for legislation supprting the freedmens rights.
The special speaker for the meeting will be John Gomez, a former Pechanga Nation tribal official who is currently President of the American Indian Rights and Resources Organization (AIRRO), an organization which fights for the rights of California Indians who have been disenrolled as citizens of California Indian tribes in violation of federal, state, and or Indian nation tribal law.
The meeting is free and open to the general public. Meeting attendants are asked to bring a "covered dish" to share with the other meeting attendants. For more information contact Mr Riley 918-331-3535 or or Mrs Vann: 405-818-5360 or e-mail mkvann@hotmail.com
