November News Byte 2024
Celebrating and honoring Native American heritage
One final happy Native American Heritage Month, Verified News Community!
We are proud to be a Native-owned news media company, doing our part to honor Native American heritage and uplift our fellow community members.
We hope you had plenty of time to honor Native voices this month, like VNN’s own Trista Vaughn, who spoke about the importance of Native storytelling at a NAHM event at the Oklahoma State Capitol.
At VNN Oklahoma, one of our major commitments is giving a voice to the voiceless, ensuring the injustices suffered by Native people are known and never forgotten.
We continued this work in November by reporting on the Morrison case files, the first historical investigation in VNN Oklahoma’s new Tulsa’s Indigenous Truth series.
What began as research into one case quickly expanded into a complex web of corruption centering on one Mvskoke woman.
There were also plenty of inspiring stories this Native American Heritage Month.
Our affiliate Osage News reported on the historic land trust agreement between the Osage Nation and the United States government, in which the Osage Nation put 43,000 acres into trust.
Now that the land is in trust, it cannot be sold or hampered by any legal or financial burdens but only preserved for future generations. The Osage Nation also has criminal jurisdiction over the land.
A historic moment also happened for Muscogee (Creek) Nation, during a ceremony to honor the Locvpoka Tribal Town founding Tulsa in 1836.
At this month’s Council Oak Tree Ceremony, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum vowed to return Council Oak Tree Park and Stickball Park to the Nation.
Mayor-Elect Monroe Nichols spoke during the ceremony, as well, saying remembering history should serve as a challenge and great obligation to not only unite but be aggressive on how we think about progress.
Nichols was elected as Tulsa’s next mayor in early November.
And lifting up Native voices isn’t just about acknowledging the past; it’s also about honoring the traditions and cultures of Native people in everyday life.
VNN affiliate Catalyst News explored potential first steps to decolonizing, sharing ideas from a global health researcher about the best ways to go about the process.
Interested in weighing in? Take Catalyst News’s Decolonization Feedback Survey here.
In education news, the results of an investigation into Owasso Public Schools, located on the Cherokee Nation Reservation, were released this month. OPS did not come out looking good.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights found that OPS has not been properly handling reports of sexual harassment by students or complying with Title IX, including not taking the proper steps in the case of Nex Benedict.
Benedict, of Choctaw descent, was bullied and assaulted at OPS before they committed suicide earlier this year.
There is much to be done for Indigenous equity and equality. The first step to solving a problem is shining a light on it.
Read our latest report on Native incarceration disparity here.
And Catalyst News’s report on Tulsa County equity and disparity here.
2025 is going to be a game-changer for Indian Country, especially in our headquarter state of Oklahoma. VNN is working on new collaborations and more community impact than ever before.
To keep up with the latest news and updates, don’t forget to subscribe and follow our work- if you haven’t already! Easily scroll the best news feed around by bookmarking our Latest News Feed in your browser or saving our app directly to your mobile phone home screen.
We hope you enjoy the holiday season with family and friends. We’ll be back next month with a look at VNN’s BIG plans for 2025!