Black Freedmen Relatives Must Take Citizenship Row To Tribe For Resolution

Mealey's (May 7, 2019, 11:39 AM EDT) -- WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Indian tribe’s Citizenship Board must have the first shot at deciding whether several ancestors of former black slaves of the Indians should be members of the tribe, a District of Columbia federal judge ruled May 6 in dismissing the ancestors’ claims against the U.S. government for failure to exhaust tribal remedies (Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band, Inc., et al. v. David Bernhardt, et al., No. 18-1705, D. D.C., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75790)....