TULSA, Okla. — Attorneys representing Black Creek descendants in an ongoing citizenship dispute with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation are requesting records from the federal government they say could shed light on how national policymakers are understanding the decades-long fight over Freedmen citizenship.
National civil and human rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, founder of Justice for Greenwood, and his legal team submitted a formal request to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) seeking materials used to compile a federal report examining Freedmen descendants of the Five Tribes.
The request was filed on behalf of Rhonda K. Grayson and Jeffrey D. Kennedy, respondents in Citizenship Board of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Grayson, a closely watched case currently before the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court.
The legal filing seeks records connected to the GAO’s December 2025 report to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, titled Tribal Programs: Information on Freedmen Descendants of the Five Tribes. The report included discussion of the ongoing dispute within the Muscogee Nation over whether descendants of formerly enslaved people held by tribal citizens are entitled to citizenship.
Under federal regulations governing the Public Availability of Government Accountability Office Records, attorneys for the Black Creek descendants have asked the agency to provide interview recordings, transcripts, internal notes, correspondence, and memoranda used to produce the report.
Solomon-Simmons said access to those materials is critical to ensuring the federal report accurately reflects the realities facing Freedmen descendants.
“When a federal report is used to inform policymakers and the public about Freedmen descendants, the process behind that report matters,” Solomon-Simmons said in a statement. “Access to the underlying records is essential to ensuring accuracy, accountability, and fairness—especially when the rights of living people and families are at stake.”
A long-running fight over Freedmen citizenship
The case comes amid a broader national reckoning over the status of Freedmen descendants, the descendants of formerly enslaved Black people who were held by citizens of the Five Tribes — the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations — before the Civil War.
Following the war, treaties signed in 1866 between the U.S. government and the tribes granted citizenship rights to Freedmen and their descendants. In the decades since, those rights have been contested in several tribal nations, often leading to legal battles over historical records, tribal sovereignty, and citizenship eligibility.
Within the Muscogee Nation, the issue has remained unresolved, with Freedmen descendants seeking full recognition as citizens of the tribe.
The current case before the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court centers on whether Freedmen descendants can be denied citizenship under current tribal law despite the language of the 1866 treaty.
Legal team calls for transparency
Attorney Jana Knott, co-counsel in the case, said the request for GAO materials is about more than a single lawsuit. She described it as part of a broader effort to ensure the historical record surrounding Freedmen descendants is complete and transparent.
“Freedmen descendants have spent generations navigating systems that obscure records, restrict access, and limit transparency,” Knott said. “Requesting these materials is about more than litigation. It’s about ensuring that historical narratives and policy decisions are grounded in a full and honest record.”
Federal reports like the GAO’s are frequently cited by lawmakers, tribal governments, and advocacy organizations when shaping policy related to tribal programs and citizenship rules.
Attorneys representing the Black Creek descendants say that makes transparency around the report’s development particularly important.
A continuing story in Indian Country and Oklahoma
The dispute carries particular significance in Oklahoma, where the legacy of Freedmen citizenship debates intersects with broader conversations about race, sovereignty, and historical accountability.
Coverage fromThe Black Wall Street Times has previously documented how Freedmen descendants across the Five Tribes continue to navigate legal systems that often hinge on incomplete or disputed historical records.
The request for GAO materials could potentially reveal how federal officials gathered information about Freedmen descendants and what sources shaped the report’s conclusions.
For advocates representing Black Creek descendants, the hope is that access to those records will bring greater clarity to a debate that has stretched across generations.
Whether the GAO releases the requested documents, and what they might reveal, could influence not only the case before the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court but also the broader national conversation about the rights of Freedmen descendants in tribal nations.
As the litigation continues, Solomon-Simmons said the central issue remains simple: ensuring that the story of Freedmen descendants is told fully and truthfully.
“The stakes are not abstract,” he said. “They involve real families, real histories, and the question of who belongs.”