Oklahoma’s vaccinations for black citizens denied black citizens

By the time the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma began distributing vaccines to tribal citizens, LeEtta Osborne-Sampson has already seen nearly two dozen members of her extended family die from COVID-19. She is relieved that the vaccine doses have finally arrived to protect those who remain.

But when she arrived at the Indian Health Service Clinic in Wewoka, the capital of the Seminole Nation, staff refused to give her a chance. They informed her that she was not eligible because her tribal ID card identified her as a Freedman, a Seminole citizen descended from addicted black people. When she demanded answers, staff called a police officer.

“It’s a terrible day to find out that your own people will let you die,” said Osborne-Sampson, who sits on the Seminole Nation tribal council.

While tribal leaders and the Indian Health Service have been praised for the successful rollout of COVID vaccines across the country, Osborne-Sampson is one of six freelancers who told BuzzFeed News that the Seminole nation based its vaccines, health services and COVID’s financial relief , refused. on the descent listed on their tribe ID cards. Freemasons make up about one-eighth of the nearly 20,000 Seminole Nation citizens and are counted in the tribal census – which the federal government used to allocate more than $ 16 million in CARES Act funds to the tribe.

The distinction between a ‘Native American’ and a ‘freer’ is based on what Freemasons call a racist and outdated ideology of ‘citizenship by blood’. All Seminole Freedmen receive tribal ID cards with “Freedman citizen, 0/0 Indian blood” and “Voting benefits only” on the front. Other tribal citizens receive cards calling their blood quantum (their fraction of “Indian blood”), without any restrictions. Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News show that the Seminole tribe used these ID cards to deny Freelancers access to COVID health and financial services.

Indigenous communities across the country have been hit hard by the pandemic, with Native Americans and Alaska natives dying against more than twice as many white people in the U.S. – higher than any other racial or ethnic group. But for Freedmen, decades of exclusion from their local tribal health services have left them particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 – the same kind inequalities experienced in black communities across the US.

In early March, shortly after BuzzFeed News began reporting this, the Wewoka Clinic changed its policy to offer vaccines to anyone over the age of 18, regardless of tribe status. But the IHS allocates vaccines to the clinic based on the number of active patients – and since Freedmen is not eligible for any health care by the Seminole Nation, they were not included in the scores and determine how many vaccines the clinic received. the agency confirmed to BuzzFeed. News.

In response to questions about why Freedman citizens of the Seminole Nation were denied vaccines at the Wewoka Clinic, the IHS said it ‘works closely with tribes and the state of Oklahoma to ensure vaccines reach Indian country as quickly and fairly as possible. . ‘ Asked about free people who are excluded from services other than the vaccine, the IHS said it was “not involved in determining the seniority of individual citizens.”

The Seminole Nation did not respond to several requests for comment from BuzzFeed News.

Osborne-Sampson and other Freedmen leaders have been fighting for decades for full rights of and recognition by their tribal governments. Now, they say, the interest is even higher.

“I do not want my name in lights,” Osborne-Sampson said. “I want my place at the table so our people can survive.”

Dora Thomas, a Freedmen Elder and former member of the Seminole Nation’s tribal council, and her son, Patrick Thomas, a commercial truck driver fighting his recent removal from the council, applied for emergency relief from COVID last summer. Both were denied letters of assistance, according to letters from the Seminole Nation’s COVID-19 Emergency Relief Committee: ‘The review committee has determined that you are not eligible to receive funding from the program because you do not have a valid stem member card for the Seminole Nation does not own. of Oklahoma. ”

Dora and her husband were hospitalized with COVID-19 in January, and both were placed on ventilators. He died about two weeks later while she was in a rehab center. As a free man, Dora could not be eligible for health care through the Seminole Nation, and therefore she went to the state to receive public insurance.

The next month, Patrick called to see if he and his mother could be vaccinated by the tribe. He was told they were not eligible.

“They hate us so much,” Patrick said. “We are stuck in a system that does not care about us.”

The Wewoka Clinic’s vaccine policy has given up to 1 priority to the health of “through blood” citizens, making exceptions for freelancers living with “Native Americans,” according to a telephone survey reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

Anthony Conley, a member of the tribal council of Seminole Nation, called the Wewoka Clinic in February to see if Freedmen were eligible. A representative said the clinic does not honor the Freedmen – but if they share a household with a “Native American” or are a housekeeper, they will be eligible.

Despite the policy change, Conley, Patrick, Dora and Osborne-Sampson said they no longer wanted to be vaccinated at the Wewoka clinic.

Blocking access to vaccines is the latest chapter in a long struggle for the freedom of free people. The Seminole Freedmen are descendants of formerly addicted black people who escaped to what is now Florida. After fighting in the Seminole Wars in the 19th century, both Freedmen and the Indians of Seminole were forced to relocate to Indian territory in present-day Oklahoma. In the 1866 treaty that the Seminole nation signed with the USA, Freedmen and their descendants were recognized as equal citizens in the tribe.

But a series of legal battles since then have brought the tribe – whose leaders have their sovereign right to determine their own membership – against the Freemasons. Despite heavy fines from the federal government and a series of lawsuits, which have established that Freemasons are considered citizens, many say that they are still denied services and treated as second class.

The tension between the Seminole Nation and the Freedmen reveals the complex and often overlooked racial dynamics within many tribes. Cherokee Freedmen was confirmed as a full citizen after a series of court cases in 2017 and is now receiving full health and financial services. In February, the Cherokee Supreme Court removed the term “by blood” from its constitution and laws. Freemen of the Chickasaw, Creek and Choctaw tribes are not considered citizens and are not eligible for any tribal services. Seminole Freedmen, meanwhile, are sitting in the middle: Although they are citizens who can vote in elections and have representatives on the council, they still do not have access to health or financial services.

The controversy over Freemasons received renewed attention last year after Gary Batton, head of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which he would oppose the provisions in a housing bill that would force the tribes to grant Free citizens full citizenship. In the letter, Batton writes that the provision would subject the sovereignty of the Choctaw nation. “Congress should not be allowed to abuse its power by forcing the Choctaw nation to solve America’s long-standing problems of systemic racism rooted in America’s slavery of African Americans,” Batton wrote, although the Choctaw Tribe has also enslaved black people in the past.

Osborne-Sampson believes tribal leaders against Freedom hide behind sovereignty as an excuse for their own racism.

“I thought sovereignty was building the nation and not breaking it down,” she said.

After hearing stories from other freemen are denied the vaccine, but many Seminole liberators do not bother to gain access through the tribe.

Sache Primeaux-Shaw was unwilling to undergo her 85-year-old grandmother through the humiliating process that her own tribe refused health care, she said. Instead, after some research, she was able to find a vaccine appointment for her grandmother in a black-owned clinic in Oklahoma City.

Primeaux-Shaw, a Freedmen genealogist and historian, was enrolled at Seminole Freedman at his birth. In elementary school, however, she switched her enrollment to her mother’s tribe, the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, which offers all the citizens’ full benefits and services. This means she can now access health care benefits that her grandmother, a citizen of the Seminole Nation, cannot get.

“I do not want her to die as a second-class citizen,” said Primeaux-Shaw, who believes anti-blackness within the five tribes has worsened over the past decade in response to Freedmen’s growing advocacy efforts.

Marilyn Vann, the president of the descendants of Freemasons of the five civilized tribes, has been organizing for years. Her group spreads awareness of Freedmen history and advocates that they should receive equal citizenship in their respective tribes. Vann, a retired engineer with the U.S. Treasury Department, is also a candidate for the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council.

“When Jim Crow finished, the sky did not fall. It is not falling apart now, ”Vann said, referring to when Cherokee Freedmen received full citizenship. She believes it is time for the other four tribes to follow suit, especially as the pandemic destroys the Freedmen community. “As long as people are oppressed, the whole community is weaker.”

Meanwhile, Freedmen groups are arranging across Oklahoma to get their elders vaccinated. Sylvia Davis, a Seminole Freedmen and former member of the tribal council, said it brought them nowhere to try to work with tribal leaders. Davis, Osborne-Sampson and the Seminole Freedmen therefore say they are raising money to fight the exclusions in court. Osborne-Sampson was reluctant to go outside the tribe with their affairs, but said the crisis left them no choice.

While raising money for legal fees, Freedmen leaders organize rallies and work to educate others about their history in hopes of advancing the community. They also plan to make the exclusion of Freedmen an issue in the upcoming Seminole election this summer.

Despite their losses, Freedmen leaders are hopeful that the pandemic will be the spark that will eventually get their rights. But as things continued to spread, Osborne-Sampson said she was worried it would be too expensive: “How many of us will be left in six months?” ●

Joseph Lee is a writer for Aquinnah Wampanoag in New York City.