BALTIMORE, Oct. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In recent years many descendants of enslaved people from Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations have applied for citizenship only to learn that they are rejected for having no blood connection to a recognized citizen. Yet when their ancestors were enslaved they were then considered Choctaw slaves, or Chickasaw slaves. After freedom, their historic tie was ignored and these human beings were now to be excluded from rights that their slave holders promised to provide through treaty with the United States in 1866.
Since May 2021 descendants of both Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen have formed a new organization. This new group is called the Choctaw Chickasaw Freedmen Association, (CCFA).
CCFA will be an advocacy group for descendants who are seeking inclusion, and expanding the historical narrative by telling the entire story of the presence of black men, women and children in those two nations
CCFA embraces the same name used by their ancestors, in the 1890s, and following in the footsteps of the original group, this group will address concerns and interests of today. Among their issues, is the omission of the very presence of their ancestors in the tribal history, and the exclusion of Freedmen descendants from citizenship. This omission allows both tribes to omit the story of slavery, as if it never occurred.
CCFA seeks to address this very act of historical omission of chattel slavery, and the group will examine efforts of race-based exclusion that still exists today, continuing the practice that began in the early post- Civil War years.
The founding members of CCFA, are writers, educators, bloggers, nationally known speakers, advocates for historic preservation, and cultural inclusion. The group embraces all people who had ties to the history of both nations. Freedmen reach out to all who have an interest in the history of the Freedmen, to find stories of their legacy from Removal to Freedom to the struggles for citizenship. A major task of this new group will be to identify descendants of Freedmen from both groups.
CCFA hopes to educate and to engage with both enrolled citizens and descendants of Freedmen from both nations. CCFA hopes to reach out to those who see the Freedmen as having a presence in the history of each tribe, and who know that the full history cannot be told accurately until it is told entirely.
CCFA will be an advocacy group for descendants who are seeking inclusion, and expanding the historical narrative by telling the entire story of the presence of black men, women and children in those two nations.
CCFA hopes to eradicate the old-south treatment of formerly enslaved people, who have a birthright to the nation where their grandparents, great grandparents and earlier ancestors lived and toiled as Chickasaw-held and Choctaw-held people for generations.
CCFA hopes to help descendants have a closer tie to the communities from which their families come.
Contact:
Angela Walton-Raji
Public Relations
[email protected]
816-313-8287
SOURCE Choctaw Chickasaw Freedmen Association
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