Law360 (July 23, 2026, 7:26 PM EDT) -- Members of the Muscogee Creek Black Freedmen are asking a federal court to block officials with Oklahoma's Muscogee (Creek) Nation from denying them citizenship, saying in a lawsuit brought Thursday that those governmental leaders are defying a tribal Supreme Court ruling that gave them the right.

Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy filed the complaint on the one-year anniversary of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court's unanimous decision that remanded their case to the tribal citizenship board and ordered it to apply the Treaty of 1866 to its requirements for citizenship.

"Since the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court's ruling, defendants have flouted that court order and erected roadblocks at every turn to deprive plaintiffs of their fundamental rights of citizenship in violation of the Treaty of 1866," according to the suit.

The complaint named Principal Chief David Hill, the tribe's citizenship board and its individual members as defendants.

Since the tribal high court's July 2025 decision, Grayson and Kennedy have filed numerous motions to hold the tribe's citizenship board or executive branch in contempt, alleging they failed to comply with the landmark decision.

In May 2026, the justices denied those motions, saying the governmental entities have shown they are taking steps to comply with the directive, albeit slowly.

"We won in the Nation's highest court, but one year later we are still being treated as though the judgment never happened," Grayson, chairwoman and band leader of the Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band said in a statement Thursday. "A right that exists only on paper is not justice."

A month after the high court's 2025 ruling, Hill issued an executive order that paused the issuance of any enrollment cards to Muscogee Creek Freedmen, saying he was upholding the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Constitution until the requirements of the ruling can be reviewed.

In April 2026, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Council adopted a resolution that called for a vote of no confidence in Justices Andrew Adams, Richard Lerblance, Montie Deer, Kathleen Supernaw and George Thompson for handing down the 2025 decision in the Freedmen citizenship dispute.

According to the legislation, the justices violated their oath of office by independently amending the 1979 Creek Constitution by striking "by blood" without a vote of the people.

The Creek citizenship board, in an October 2025 response to Grayson and Kennedy's second motion for contempt before the high court, argued that it has a constitutional duty to certify citizenship, and that it must do so within the framework of tribal code, as well as its own rules and regulations.

"The citizenship board has not willfully disobeyed this court's order and opinion in this case," according to its response. "The citizenship board does not argue that the court's order in this case was valid and lawful, nor that the order was clear, definite and unambiguous. Rather, the citizenship board asserts that it has not yet had the ability to comply with the order, and therefore, is not in contempt."

At a press conference held in Oklahoma City on Thursday, Grayson said the case is bigger than her or Kennedy's applications for Creek citizenship.

"It is about honoring the law, respecting the court's decision, and ensuring that the promises made to our ancestors are finally upheld. The fight is bigger than any one of us," she told reporters.

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court's decision upheld a 2023 ruling by tribal district court Judge Denette Mouser that reversed a 2020 administrative decision to deny citizenship applications by Grayson and Kennedy, while remanding the case for further review.

The citizenship board, in turn, appealed the decision to the tribal high court.

Grayson and Kennedy argued Article II of the Treaty of 1866 between the federal government and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation guarantees them and their fellow descendants citizenship within the Oklahoma tribe.

Section 2 of the 1866 Treaty gave certain rights and privileges to people who were enslaved by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. The nations, often referenced in federal statutes as the Five Civilized Tribes, were required to abolish slavery on their lands and give full rights to those they had enslaved and to their descendants.

The lawsuit argues the U.S. Supreme Court's 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, in which the justices held the reservation boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation are intact and remain a part of Indian Country under federal law, serves as a guiding precedent for the Treaty of 1866.

There are no provisions in the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act that mention the Freedmen, the suit says. The law, which in 1936 allowed the tribe to reorganize their governments after land allotments, only concerns the reorganization of federally recognized Oklahoma tribes and the development and approval of new tribal constitutions.

"Congress did not provide any language that could be read as a specific delegation to the executive branch authorizing it to change any prior treaty terms," Grayson and Kennedy said in their complaint.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney representing the pair, said Thursday the federal litigation could affect more than 100,000 Black Creek descendants nationwide and their access to voting, housing, healthcare, education, business assistance and other rights and benefits tied to citizenship.

The attorney said during the press conference that the fight is personal for him and many other Creek Freedmen whose ancestors survived their forced removal on the Trail of Tears from their ancestral homelands in Georgia, Alabama, parts of Florida and Tennessee.

Up until 1979, Solomon-Simmons said, Creek Freedmen had the same citizenship rights as their fellow tribal members. However, a group of Creek citizens redrafted a new constitution that added the "by blood" to its enrollment requirements, stripping thousands of Creek Freedmen of rights they had known since birth.

In handing down the unanimous decision last year, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court ordered the tribe's citizenship board to apply the Treaty of 1866 to its requirements for citizenship and begin processing any future applications from those who are able to establish lineage to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation through the blood Dawes Rolls or the Creek Freedmen Dawes Rolls.

The blood Dawes Rolls, compiled by the federal government between 1898 and 1914, allotted individual land parcels in Oklahoma to individual tribal members. Those listed on the rolls included individuals with varying degrees of Indigenous ancestry as a way for the government to speed up westward expansion and force assimilation, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society's website.

The Creek Freedmen Dawes Rolls were compiled at the same time. However, even if Freedmen had mixed-race ancestry, they were categorized on that separate roll rather than "by blood," eliminating their Indigenous ancestry, the society says.

Solomon-Simmons said Thursday that Creek Freedmen have been fighting for citizenship for decades, with several of their members passing away before hearing the tribal Supreme Court's final 2025 ruling.

Grayson and Kennedy in 2022 sued the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's citizenship board in tribal court, following a decadelong fight that prompted the Cherokee Nation to enact a new constitution offering citizenship to the descendants of Black people it once held as slaves.

"We took that victory, and we were hoping at that time, the Creek Nation would do the right thing," Solomon-Simmons said.

According to the lawsuit brought Thursday, during the appeal of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court's ruling, the tribe' national council tried "to stack" the high court to ensure it would reverse the 2023 district court ruling. Justices Leah Harjo-Ware and Justice Amos McNac recused themselves from the case, leaving the five remaining justices to hear the appeal, the complaint noted.

In June 2024, a month before the Supreme Court arguments, the tribal council scheduled an emergency session, during which it passed several bills to "stack" the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court by amending the tribe's judiciary code to require that seven justices hear all appeals and allow for the appointment of special judges, the suit says.

Also, the plaintiffs contended, the tribal council repealed a provision that required the agreement of the chief justice before appointing a temporary judge, and appointed James Jennings and Samuel Deere as special justices to hear Grayson and Kennedy's case.

"The emergency session was shrouded in secrecy — no notice was given to the Nation's citizens, and no record of the session is available," the Freedmen said in the complaint.

Grayson and Kennedy were able to successfully challenge the bills as unconstitutional, their suit says.

Solomon-Simmons said Thursday during the press conference that Hill has tried to block his clients from citizenship "at every turn," comparing it to "paper genocide."

The attorney said he and his clients have reached out to Hill numerous times over the years, as well as the leaders of other tribes, requesting a meeting to talk about the Freedmen's citizenship rights. However, he said, those requests have all been ignored.

"This is a clear issue of injustice. This is a clear issue of discrimination. That's a clear issue with a wound, it's law, and it's been abandoned, and that's something we're seeing too often in this country. The rule of law is not being held here, too," Solomon-Simmons said.

Kennedy told reporters he can also trace his ancestors back to their removal from their homelands on the Trail of Tears. Since the 2025 tribal Supreme Court win, he said, he has lost several family members who once were enrolled Muscogee (Creek) Nation members, and were able to celebrate the victory before they died.

The plaintiffs' and attorney's ancestors grew up Creek, spoke the Creek language, and passed down traditional stories just as currently enrolled members of the tribe, they said.

"We've done all the things that we needed to do. We just wanted to have [our ancestors,] as I said a couple of years ago, we just want to go home," Kennedy said.

A representative of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Grayson and Kennedy are represented by Damario Solomon-Simmons of Solomon Simmons Law PLLC, Jana L. Knott of Bass Law, and Lauren Briggerman and William Hupp of Squire Patton Boggs LLP.

Counsel information for the tribal defendants was not immediately available.

The case is Grayson et al. v. Hill et al., case number 5:26-cv-01874, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

--Editing by Covey Son.

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