Native inclusion gains ground under Tulsa’s new leadership

(TULSA, Okla.) Many Native American tribes located in Northeast Oklahoma were forced here from their ancestral homelands after the signing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and subsequent actions. This includes the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, whose reservation covers much of present-day Tulsa.

Tulsa city limits also include the Cherokee and Osage reservations.

While Indigenous people have been living in the Tulsa region for hundreds of years, long before Oklahoma became a state or Tulsa became a city, inclusion of Indigenous perspective and culture has seldom been a city priority. 

In 2018, The City of Tulsa revealed its first “Resilience Strategy” which included “Resilient Tulsa”, a document the City described as “an equitable, action-oriented, and collaborative roadmap for all of Tulsa”. The announcement included a letter from former Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum acknowledging that Tulsa was founded by the Muscogee people. But, while it mentioned both the Trail of Tears and Tulsa Race Massacre, it failed to mention the Allotment and Assimilation Era crime and injustice that the City of Tulsa was built from. 

Last year, under the same leadership, Indigenous representation was left out of the decision-making process to hire Tulsa’s new police chief. 

But the winds of change have been blowing since Monroe Nichols was elected Mayor of Tulsa in November 2024. Following his inauguration, Nichols appointed Amanda Swope (Muscogee and Osage) as the City’s first Director of Tribal Policy and Partnerships. 

“One thing I tell people here and in the work that I do is that it definitely didn’t always feel popular to be Native,” said Swope. 

Swope has spent the last nine months meeting with Tribal leaders, commissions and community members to ensure that Native voices are represented in the city.

“I think there’s definitely times through different administrations where the relationship and maybe the inclusion kind of ebbs and flows,” said Swope. “People’s willingness and desire to be involved at the City, I think that does come from making them feel included in the work that we do here.”

When it comes to tribal inclusion, Swope says there has to be efforts to engage with tribes that are not just tied to them being a financial contributor to a project. 

“I think there’s this idea of wanting the tribe to be included and that conversation really starts by ‘can they be a financial contributor’,” said Swope. “If I were to really encourage people how they can change that I would say to focus on how you can include the community and the Nations in the beginning without it necessarily being about whether or not they’re going to contribute financially to whatever project or anything that you’re working on.” 

Swope says she is currently working on recommendations for how the Native community can be included in Tulsa going forward, noting that the city does have to keep in mind that there are three reservations. 

“One thing that I think that we've kind of heard repeatedly from people in the community is having some sort of intertribal space within the city for people, which is I will admit a challenge in itself because there’s three Nations here so how do you create a space where everybody feels equally well-represented and included,” said Swope.

Swope said Nichols has a Muscogee Nation flag in his office as well as an Osage Nation flag and is waiting on a flag from the Cherokee Nation. 

Additionally, Swope said Tulsa’s housing crisis is also something the City is hoping to collaborate with the Tribal governments on.

She said inclusion will also mean not just working with tribal governments but community members as well.

“I would really like to at some point in my role look at doing things like a Tribal town hall for tribal specific communities and citizens and even maybe doing something like genealogy workshops,” said Swope.  

Swope will also be in attendance for the Indigenous Roots American Indian History Symposium “Community Conversation on Indigenous Inclusion in Tulsa” event on Sunday, October 5, an opportunity for community members to share their experiences, voice their concerns, and offer feedback on how Tulsa can become a more inclusive and supportive place for Native people.

The community discussion will be preceded by a presentation by VNN Oklahoma’s Brittany Harlow titled “A Shared Duty to Native People in the Greater Tulsa Area”. 

The presentation explains how Tulsa’s growth and infrastructure were built on land theft and exploitation of Native and Freedmen families during the Allotment and Assimilation Era, with state, county, and city governments all complicit in profiting from this dispossession, as well as possible steps to acknowledge and address the injustice moving forward. 

Those looking to sign up to take part in the community discussion can do so here.