The Cherokee Supreme Court (the tribe is a sovereign nation) ruled this week a 2007 constitutional amendment that required Cherokee blood in order to belong to the tribe could stand.
"This is racism and apartheid in the 21st century," Marilyn Vann, the lead plaintiff in the case and a freedman leader, told Reuters.
The controversy over the freedmen's status is at least in part about money. The Cherokee nation, the second-largest Native American tribe in the country, receives money from the federal government and earns money from its stake in the lucrative gambling industry, which totaled $26.4 billion for all tribes in 2009. In the run-up to the 2007 amendment vote, some proponents of expelling the freedmen suggested that more blacks might apply for membership to receive tribal money.
