According to Marilyn Vann, the leader of the Freedman, race, politics and millions of dollars coming in from tribal casinos are leaving Blacks in the cold; and leaders of the Cherokee nation with the power to put their friends and family in lucrative positions.

“Things started going downhill after Oklahoma became a state. That brought in the idea of white superiority. The majority of Freedmen can trace their ancestry to a specific Indian. We just can’t prove it. There are some very white looking Cherokees. They can’t get Caucasians out, but they can get dark people out.”

Read more the Grio.

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Cherokee Nation Revokes African-Americans’ Tribal Citizenship

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The ruling comes several months after a district court granted equal tribal citizenship rights to descendants.

Monday’s 4-1 decision, overturned the district courts ruling, citing that the judge did not have the right to overturn an 1866 Cherokee constitutional amendment.

The attorney representing freedmen in their case against the Cherokee Nation said Tuesday that he was shocked the tribe’s Supreme Court ruled against the freedmen so close to the special election to pick a new chief, according to the Oklahoman.

Read more at Colorlines.

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VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to revive a lawsuit on behalf of Native American activists who claimed that the Washington Redskins’ team name is so offensive that it does not deserve trademark protection.

The court without comment refused to get involved in the long-running dispute. The decision essentially lets stand a lower court ruling that the activists waited too long to bring the challenge.

The team has been known as the Redskins since 1933, when the name was changed from the Boston Braves. It became the Washington Redskins in 1937, when the team moved south.

The lawsuit was filed in 1992, when seven activists challenged a Redskins trademark issued in 1967. They won seven years later in a decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which said the name could be interpreted as offensive to Native Americans. The case is Harjo v. Pro-Football Inc.

Trademark law prohibits registration of a name that “may disparage . . . persons, living or dead, . . . or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”

The team appealed to federal court.

Judges at the district and circuit levels said the activists’ trademark cancellation claim was barred by the doctrine of laches, which serves as a defense against claims that should have been made long ago.

The activists argued that disparaging trademarks can be challenged at any time, citing a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. The decision was written by then-judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., who now sits on the Supreme Court.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that was merely a “suggestion” of how to interpret the law.

The federal district judge who heard the lawsuit also said the activists had not proven that the name was disparaging.

The Supreme Court considered only the question of whether the suit was barred because of the passage of too much time.

Source

VIA WJLA:

A group of American Indians who find the Washington Redskins name offensive wants the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

The group on Monday asked the justices to review a lower court decision that favored the NFL team on a legal technicality.

Seven Native Americans have been working through the court system since 1992 to have the Redskins trademarks declared invalid.

A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel ruled in their favor in 1999. But they’ve been handed a series of defeats from judges who ruled that the plaintiffs waited too long to bring their suit in the first place.

A lawyer for the group says he’d like to see the highest court decide whether the Redskins name defames Native Americans.

Read more here.