Image: Enrolled Cherokee and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt at a 2020 Trump White House Conference, Wikimedia
Kevin Stitt is an Indian who doesn’t want the treaty rights afforded to his tribal nation, Cherokee Nation Oklahoma (CNO). He is also the elected governor of Oklahoma.
On a few occasions, he has cited the unfairness of Oklahoma Indians having any rights that are not extended to non-Indian Oklahomans.
Kevin Stitt looks like a White man. He is also a Republican. Neither looking like a White man (nor a Black man), nor being Republican disqualifies him from being a Cherokee as defined by the CNO. He can legally be Cherokee, look White and be Republican all at the same time. Even the state of Oklahoma can’t deny him the right to hold office.
In August 2025, Stitt overturned an agreement that Tulsa’s Black Mayor, Monroe Nichols, had made with the Muscogee Creek Nation (MCN) to allow the MCN to prosecute cases of MCN citizens arrested in Tulsa.
Mayor Nichols was acting in obedience to the US Supreme Court (McGirt v. Oklahoma, 2020), which had ruled that the Muscogee Creek Nation still had jurisdiction in the regions of Oklahoma (then Indian Territory) that had been granted to the MCN by Treaty.
Governor Stitt had a problem with the McGirt decision back in 2022, as he stated in an interview with Fox News, saying this will allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, due to their race.
Stitt seems unable to realize that Indian Treaties pre-date the creation of the State of “Oklahoma,” which un-ironically means “Red People.”
To be fair, Governor Stitt was elected by a majority of Oklahoma voters, and he is doing his job by protecting that constituency, Indian and non-Indian.
“Tribes React to Governor Stitt’s Comments about Sovereignty,” YouTube, Oklahoma’s News4
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