African Diaspora Directorate

ANNOUNCEMENT TO CREATE A LOCAL FILM ABOUT NATIONAL BUFFALO SOILDERS DAY

NATIONAL BUFFALO SOILDERS DAY is a short time away on July 28th 2021.

You are invited to a daily 7pm est 1 hour Zoom Webinar Between July 22nd and July 28th, 2021 on NATIONAL BUFFALO SOILDERS DAY Sign up here

https://bit.ly/ZoomUNESCOClubs

July 28th 2021 is National Buffalo Soldiers Day and as part of the Ohio Command, of the VA authorized Veteran Service Organization, the National Black Veterans Association I would you have someone contact me on a proclamation or support during that days activities.

In south west Ohio we would read it out at the park monument in Cincinnati for Cincinnati Black Brigade of the civil war. We then will go to the William Howard Taft National Historic Site in my family neighborhood of Mt Auburn (I used to be a community council member and LSDMC in Mt. Auburn) to commemorate Buffalo Soldiers as Park Rangers.

https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historyculture/buffalo-soldiers.htm

FYI - In 1866, Congress passed legislation known as the Army Organization Act, which formalized the creation of six all-Black U.S. Cavalry and infantry units. National Buffalo Soldiers Day will be celebrated on Wednesday, July 28, 2021.

From at least Ohio, California, Oklahoma, New York, Kansas, Texas and in Washington DC we will honor Charles Young who was just a couple of years old when he and his family escaped slavery by crossing the Ohio River into Ripley, Ohio. He would go on to become the first Black man to become a Colonel in the United States Army, the first Black National Park superintendent and the highest-ranking Black man in the regular army during his lifetime.

Young was a "Buffalo Soldier," the name given to the all-Black 9th and 10th Army Regiments by the Native Americans they encountered.

ANYONE WANT A FIELD TRIP ON THE 28TH

Today, the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce, Ohio commemorates Young's life.

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: FAU smartWISE UNESCO Clubs, Centers & Association Working Group. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. FAU smartWISE UNESCO Clubs, Centers & Association Working Group

We plan to bring to the UN on April 19th 2021 the CADDO treaty of 1835 which predates the Five Tribes and many others promised that future tribal homelands from our public partner the town of Fort Coffee Oklahoma.

FYI - The issue of slavery, however, divided not only the U.S., but also tribal citizens. The Choctaws and Chickasaws sided with the Confederacy, while the Seminole, Creek and Cherokees had divided allegiances. After the Civil War, the U.S. forced reconstruction treaties upon the Five Tribes. The 1866 treaties abolished slavery, made “Freedmen” citizens of their respective nations, and ceded portions of their territories. The treaty era ended in the early 1870s.

News story - "How we got to McGirt, 'the most important sovereignty decision in the history of Oklahoma"

By Mike McBride III

Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. It is the most important sovereignty decision in the history of Oklahoma. The top court ruled that Muscogee (Creek) Nation lands reserved since the 19th-century remain an Indian reservation. That means the area is “Indian country” for legal jurisdiction purposes under the federal Major Crimes Act.

The decision likely also applies to the other four of the Five Tribes: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole nations, who have similar treaties. It also potentially has much broader state and tribal sovereignty implications.

How did we get here? The historical legal treatment of Oklahoma’s Indian Country is complicated. Shifting federal American Indian law policies and piecemeal statutes led to the historic confusion McGirt settled.

The history of the Five Tribes

While 38 federally recognized American Indian tribes currently call Oklahoma home, only the Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa, Quapaw and Wichita were indigenous here. The rest, over 100 tribes, came by force or by treaty. Oklahoma, by the way, is a Choctaw word that means “red people”.

Under the U.S. Constitution, treaties stand above all laws. During the 1830s, the U.S. pursued a policy of westward expansion, tribal removal and treaty making. The early treaties with the Five Tribes and many others promised that future tribal homelands, or “reservations,” would never fall within the boundaries of a state without tribal consent.

After their arrival in Indian Territory, the Five Tribes for a while governed themselves relatively free from federal interference, despite increasingly greater numbers of non-American Indian settlers encroaching on their treaty lands.

Increasingly intense non-American Indian migration and the massive expansion of railroads fueled political pressure for Congress to make even more lands available for settlement. So Congress began passing laws, ramping up pressure on tribal governments. It passed the General Allotment Act of 1887, which broke up communal reservations into individual allotments to tribal citizens, and left “surplus” lands unassigned.

Congress then opened the “unassigned lands” to white settlement in 1889, prompting the Oklahoma Land Run, and passed the Oklahoma Organic Act in 1890. Congress established the Dawes Commission in 1893 to negotiate allotment agreements with recalcitrant tribes and, in 1889, passed the Curtis Act to allot parcels to their citizens. More laws followed in 1906, including the Five Tribes Act and the Osage Allotment Act, to pave the way for Oklahoma to join the Union in 1907 as the 46th state. But no law expressly disestablished the reservations that had been created by the prior respective treaties.

While tribal governments were weakened (and the first few decades of the 20th century were bleak), tribal self-rule persisted. Most allotment laws granted American Indians U.S. citizenship, but Congress did not grant citizenship to all Native Americans until 1924. In 1936, Congress changed policy, passing the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act to reorganize and strengthen Oklahoma tribal governments.

An incorrect assumption, and a Supreme Court ruling

During the 20th century, the state Legislature, courts and governors assumed (incorrectly) that reservations no longer existed within Oklahoma. Perhaps for that reason, Oklahoma never took the necessary legal steps to assume civil and criminal jurisdiction over Native American affairs.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has since decided numerous cases holding that, despite various allotment laws that opened areas up to non-Indian settlement, tribal reservations remained. The court has held that only Congress can disestablish an American Indian reservation, and when it does so, it must do so explicitly. Otherwise, treaty reservations continue. Neither opening a reservation to settlement nor the historic expectations of non-Indians can abolish a reservation. The McGirt ruling is just the most recent, but perhaps the most sweeping, decision applying this law.

McGirt was not a bolt from the blue. The decision was carefully premised on the rich history of tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma. While McGirt leaves open a number of civil and criminal legal questions, tribal, state and federal leaders are working to resolve the issues through cooperative agreements and appropriate legislation.

Mike McBride III is an attorney with Crowe & Dunlevy, crowedunlevy.com, and chairs the Indian Law & Gaming Practice Group. The foregoing should not be understood as, or considered a substitute for, specific legal advice.

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#BlackFolksPlan – The African Diaspora Directorate Our answer to reparations is a financed as a community benefit agreement Title of UN 2020 Universal Periodic Review of the USA – Solutions to 400 years of African American History (1619-2019): an African Diaspora Directorate Solution to Racism using the 2020 Univers...

The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

WE THE PEOPLE of the Friends of the African Union do support the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

In observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, 2020 and the accompanying Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the Friends of the African Union is proud to reaffirm its commitment to defending the rights of women and girls around the world to live free from violence. The Friends of the African Union recognizes the inherent dignity that every woman and girl possesses and is committed to defending the safety and security of women and girls around the world and to cultivating their development as future leaders of our world.

Gender-based violence is a global issue that harms millions of women and girls annually, as well as their communities and families. It pervades all aspects of life – it exists in educational environments, the workforce, and in the home. It undermines global peace and security and weakens the social fabric that binds families and communities together, preventing countries from achieving social stability and economic development. Ending gender-based violence requires a coordinated effort and the steadfast dedication of governments, the private sector, and civil society to create an enduring impact.

This year, the theme for the 2020 days of Activism is “Build Back the World with Black Women Leadership: Generation Equality Stands Against Rape,” a concerted effort to mobilize against the heinous crime of r**e.

The Friends of the African Union recognizes that issues of sexual violence and r**e are rampant in times of both war and peace and now in Global Pandemics such that of COVID19.

Now is the time to put an end to gender-based violence, to stand with survivors, and to empower victims. The Friends of the African Union through actions of the African Diaspora Directorate, the African Union and the United Nations is committed to ending gender-based violence and urges countries and fellow civil society organitions around the world to stand united in this effort – for the sake of domestic national security, global prosperity, and the rights and dignity of women and girls worldwide.