Amendment to Cherokee Constitution against Freedmen Overturned

Enrollment Flyer Used for Cherokee Freedmen

Distributed to Cherokee Freedmen Citizens During the

Years of the Dawes Commission Enrollment Period

In a lower court ruling today, Cherokee Nation District Court Judge John Cripps overturned an amendment to the Cherokee Nation Constitution passed by the Cherokee people with 77% of the vote in 2007, which denied citizenship to about 2,800 non-Indian freedmen descendants who had gained citizenship since a previous court ruling in 2006. 


Information was just released today and the ruling can be found HERE.

This ruling means that the Cherokee Nation may begin to process the applications of several thousand applications made by Cherokee Freedmen, that were halted when the nation voted to expel descendants of those who were once held as slaves by the nation.