http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior Mon, 09 Nov 2026 14:42:52 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/3033/happy-native-american-citizenship-day http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/3033
INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT of 1924







And who else will help us through this mess of being an "outsider" to the country you have lived in for over 20.000 years???







June 2, 1924 - 102 years ago - gads - in our own country.







The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 (also known as the Snyder Act) is a landmark piece of U.S. legislation signed by President Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924. It granted full U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.



Universal Birthright: Prior to this act, citizenship was only available to Native Americans through specific circumstances, such as military service, marriage, or abandoning tribal affiliations through land allotment. This act made citizenship universal for all Indigenous people born in the U.S.







Dual Citizenship: Crucially, the act declared that granting U.S. citizenship did not impair or affect an individual's rights to tribal or other property. Native Americans became citizens of the United States, their respective states, and their sovereign tribal nations.







The legislation was largely pushed through Congress in recognition of the thousands of Native Americans who voluntarily served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War I.







The Right to Vote: While the 1924 Act granted citizenship, it did not automatically guarantee the right to vote. Voting was governed by state law. Several states actively barred Native Americans from voting through discriminatory measures, literacy tests, or claims that individuals living on reservations were not "residents."







It took decades for all states to comply. For instance, states like Arizona and New Mexico did not grant Native Americans the right to vote until lawsuits overturned their restrictions in 1948. It was not until 1957 that Maine, the last holdout state, allowed Native Americans on reservations to vote.







Today, American Indians and Alaska Natives hold triple citizenship: they are citizens of the United States, the states where they reside, and the federally recognized sovereign tribes to which they belong. The ongoing legal and civic implications of this act are monitored by organizations like the Native American Rights Fund, which advocates for Indigenous voting rights and political representation.







And you thought you have it rough.



I'm celebrating.

]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2026 08:59:00 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/3006/the-racism-that-caused-wounded-knee-massacre-remains http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/3006
Making a Noise in This World Re-post December 29, 2021

By Jim Kent





As Lakota riders end their 15-day journey from the Standing Rock Reservation to the site of the Wounded Knee massacre, the racism that created the tragic slaughter of 300 innocent men, women and children still remains in our country.







And while the idea of teaching the truth of our past may seem abhorrent and unpatriotic to many, reality is – both past and present.







For example, on the 6th day of the annual ride to honor those who died at the hands of the U.S. Army on December 29, 1890 South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem announced that the state’s schools “should teach our children our nation’s true history. They should teach about our successes in establishing a country that is a beacon of freedom to the world and our mistakes along the way. Our children should not, however, be taught the false and divisive message that they are responsible for the shortcomings of past generations and members of our respective races.”





I absolutely agree. No one in the 5th grade now was responsible for killing any Native American during the 19th century. But let’s focus on that “AND our mistakes" that have been omitted from the history books for generations.







Here’s one. The awarding of 20 Medals of Honor to U.S. Army troopers for “gallantry” displayed while assisting in the slaughter of those unarmed Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee. And since such commendations don’t reflect well on the values of a country that’s a “beacon of freedom” to the world, shouldn’t they be rescinded?







Kristi?







Then let’s tell children about the problem with the word “squaw’ and finish changing South Dakota geographic place names with that word in them.







That current racism topic came up on the 8th day of the Wounded Knee ride when it was reported that the South Dakota Board of Geographic Names was pleased to be ahead of the federal government’s new push to “solicit, review and recommend changes to derogatory” geographic and federal land unit names.





According to the board’s spokesperson, South Dakota is “way ahead of the game” on this one.







Or…maybe not.







In 2013, Reuters reported that there were 13 place names in South Dakota that used the word “squaw’ or “Negro”. Now the board spokesperson says “nearly all” those locations with the word “squaw” in them have been changed.







Why “nearly all” almost 9 years down the “we’re on top of it” road?







I’m sure if a South Dakota geographic location referred to a woman in Kristi Noem’s family in a derogatory fashion - as the word squaw does, be it as a part of the female body or simply a general insult, you can bet your Rodeo Queen cowgirl hat that the site would have had its designation scrubbed clean way before now.







But current racism doesn’t just exist in South Dakota.







On Christmas Eve, or 10 days into the ride intended to heal future generations from the historical trauma of Wounded Knee, news came via national media outlets of an Idaho sheriff who aimed his pistol at a youth church group that was going door-to-door in his community taping “thank you” messages on people’s front doors.







Why?







Because he thought they were some of those “drunk Indians” from the nearby Shoshone-Bannock Fort Hall Reservation.



None of them were.







The sheriff also pulled the group’s adult leader out of her car by her hair.







She also isn’t Native American.







Oops.







You really want to make sure you get your targets right if you’re going to publicly display your racist tendencies.







Maybe guys who engage in such blatant acts of racism will now be called “Craigs”, after the perpetrator in this case; Idaho Sheriff Craig Rowland.







Although some area officials are calling for Rowland’s resignation, the Bingham County Sheriff’s office has avoided commenting on the issue, calling instead for “strengthening ties” with the tribal community – which wasn’t an actual part of the incident. And no word of apology to the non-native victims who actually were the subject of the incident.







You see how confused people get when they’re trying to hide the truth and cover up racist behavior?







Yes, I know I’ve “only” mentioned three instances of current racism against Native Americans that have been reported on in the past couple of weeks, but I was always taught that even one instance of racism is unacceptable.







It’s pretty much the same as instances of sexual abuse, domestic violence, child molestation, bullying…and the list goes one.





“Only” is never an acceptable quantifier.







Right, Kristi?







Let’s not tell only some parts of our past history, because the truth is never “only”.







Jim Kent is an award-winning freelance writer and radio producer who lives in Hot Springs, S.D. His commentaries have appeared in Indian Country Today, the Lakota Times, the Rapid City Journal as well as regional and national publications across the country. He is the former editor of The New Lakota Times. His stories have been heard on National Public Radio and other national radio outlets. Jim can be reached at kentvfte@gwtc.net

]]> Tue, 30 Dec 2025 21:31:40 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/3000/native-american-supreme-court-ruling-stands http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/3000 The Court has had the new case under consideration for almost 15 months, and its staff had listed it 21 times for the full Court to consider.  It would have needed four votes to grant review, and this morning it received only those of Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas. 
In a seven-page dissenting opinion written by Gorsuch and joined in full by Thomas, they compared the 139-year-old ruling to two of the Court’s most controversial decisions on race: the 1896 ruling upholding racial segregation anoaand the 1944 decision in favor of forced imprisonment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.
The dissenters declared: “If this Court is ever to bring coherence to the law and make good on its promise of fidelity to the Constitution,” it must reconsider the 1886 decision in the case of United States v. Kagama.  “A matter so grave cannot be settled until settled right.”
The decision in the case of United States v. Kagama, issued in May 1886, unanimously upheld a law passed by Congress in 1885 (the Major Crimes Act) that gave federal courts the authority to try Indians for crimes between tribal members that occurred on reservation lands.
Without finding any specific basis in the Constitution, that decision created what has since been called the “plenary power” of Congress over Indian affairs in the United States.  “Plenary” usually means exclusive or absolute.
The doctrine, usually invoked with racist language about Indian tribes, was among a string of decisions in the 19th Century that steadily diminished the power of Native Americans to govern themselves even while increasingly taking away their homelands and sending them to government-designated reservations.
Congress enacted that shift of criminal law enforcement to federal courts because it was deeply disturbed by a decision the Supreme Court had issued in 1881 in the case of Ex parte Crow Dog.  Crow Dog had shot and killed another member of the Great Sioux Nation in Dakota Territory in 1881, in a dispute over whether the tribe should sign a treaty with the federal government.
Initially tried by his own tribe, Crow Dog was required only to pay the other tribal member’s family $600 and turn over to them eight horses and a blanket as his punishment.   However, territorial officials put him on trial in their court, and Crow Dog was convicted and sentenced to death.  He appealed to the  Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that the territorial court had no jurisdiction to try the case.
That result was overturned by Congress in 1885, leading to the Kagama ruling a year later. .
The current Supreme Court was asked to overturn that 1886 ruling in an appeal filed in July of last year by a New Mexico man, Quentin Veneno, Jr.  A member of the Jicarilla Navajo Nation in that state, he was convicted under the Major Crimes Act of domestic assault by a habitual offender for a series of personal assaults on his girl-friend, S.H.  She, too, was a tribal member; her injuries sent her to the hospital at least twice.
Veneno was convicted in federal court and sentenced to nine years and seven months in prison.  He challenged his conviction in his Supreme Court appeal, raising the issue of whether the Court would now overrule the Kagama precedent.  He also raised a second issue, testing how the trial court had handled his trial by partially closing the courtroom during the covid pandemic.
The Biden Administration, asked by the Court to respond to the appeal, urged the Court not to grant review.  It disputed the appeal on both the status of the Kagama precedent and on the closed courtroom issue.
When a Court considers a case multiple times, without acting on it, that usually is an indication that it is a strong case for potential review, at least with some of the Justices. It is unusual, though, for a case to be re-listed for consideration 21 times, as this one was between its first listing in August 2024 and its final listing last Friday.
It is possible that Gorsuch had taken all of that time to draft a dissenting opinion, expecting the Court to fail to achieve the four votes needed for review.  He tends to write opinions quite quickly, so a more likely explanation was that he and Thomas were attempting to encourage at least two other Justices to vote to take on the dispute.  That clearly did not happen.
The Court’s most recent major decision in Native American law came two years ago, when it upheld against a constitutional challenge a federal law that gave Native American families a clear priority to adopt tribal children.  The Court majority did not rely in that case on the Kagama precedent, and did remark that the concept of “plenary power” for Congress over Indian affairs had its limits, although it did not spell out any restrictions on it.  Both Gorsuch and Thomas criticized the precedent in separate opinions in that case.
The Court will also soon consider two other significant Native American law cases: a challenge to state governments’ power to impose income taxes on tribal members’ earnings in jobs with the tribe, a case from Oklahoma, and on the rights of native Americans to challenge legislative election districting maps that took away their chances of election, a case from North Dakota.  Both are developing on time lines that suggest some action by the Court early next year.
 
-----------------
In an unrelated action yesterday, the Court turned aside a request to overrule another one of its historic precedents: its 2015 decision establishing a constitutional right to marriage for same-sex couples (the case of Obergefell v. Hodges). The challenge to that decision was by Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky who was jailed for refusing -- for religion reasons -- to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple.
That couple later sued Davis, and won a verdict of $100,000 plus $260,000 for attorneys' fees.  She has been pursuing a prolonged series of court cases seeking to use the argument that the Obergefell decision was wrong as a defense to the legal cases against her.
The Court denied her latest filing with no indication that any Justice had voted to hear it.]]> Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:31:31 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/2909/native-american-citizenship-in-question http://thenewstalkers.com/1stwarrior/blog/2909
Native Nations have always known this day would come. The tribes stand on the edge of a knife. Our right to citizenship and, by extension, our tribal lands is now in question.







Trump's birthright citizenship executive order went into effect in the first days of his administration. This executive order opened the door for the deportation of illegal immigrants. Immediately, the question of Native American citizenship entered into that conversation.







Trump's opinion is Native Americans should be included in the deportation of illegal immigrants. In a court filing this week, the U.S. Justice Department defended Trump’s executive order suspending Native American citizenship.







The Justice Department has based its arguments on the 14th Amendment of 1884, which predates the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. They argue that phrases in the 14th Amendment’s language support their stand. The phrase is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and “because members of Indian tribes owe ‘immediate allegiance’ to their tribes, they are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are not constitutionally entitled to citizenship."







They add case law to support this claim with the Elk v. Wilkens, (112 U.S. 94, 1884). The case came about when John Elk, a Winnebago, renounced his allegiance to this tribe, moved off the reservation, and tried to register to vote.







When he went to register on April 5, 1880, he claimed birthright citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Charles Wilkins, the registrar of voters of the Fifth Ward of the City of Omaha, denied him.







The Supreme Court ruled in a 7 to 2 decision that though Mr. Elk was born in the United States, he was not a citizen and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because he was born on an Indian reservation.







According to the Justice Department's filing this week, “…birth in the United States does not entitle a person to citizenship. The person must also be ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States."



My head is reeling with that stance. So many questions and scenarios come to mind.







One of the first questions that pops into my mind is, where will they deport us? The Blackfeet Indian Reservation, a sovereign tribal land?







On the bright side, I can see that this can be an opportunity for the tribes, which will cost the United States time, litigation, and money. If this goes into effect, we have the chance to REDO or UNDO 150 years of racist, discriminatory, and burdensome federal Indian law and policy.



The Bureau of Indian Affairs would no longer exist.

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