FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 8, 2023
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens Flees From Mvskoke Ceremonial Leaders Trying to Deliver Eviction Notice, Calling for End to Cop City Project on Mvskoke Land
ATLANTA, GA — Today, Mvskoke Ceremonial leaders, who attempted to reach out to Mayor Andre Dickens and deliver an eviction letter, entered an Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) meeting, where ARC Board Member and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens was present. Jordan Harmon, a Mvskoke Creek attorney, read the letter aloud when the meeting adjourned and attempted to deliver an eviction notice to Dickens. The mayor quickly fled the room, surrounded by his security detail, and refused to meet with the Mvskoke Creek people who had traveled to their ancestral homeland.
“Cop city cannot be built at all,” stated the eviction letter signed by Mvskoke spiritual leaders and local Black organizers, including Yonasda Lonewolf and Reverned Keyenna Jones. “As the original relatives of this land and as ceremonial Mvskoke people, we stand in solidarity with the Black residents of Atlanta in opposition to continued genocide via cop city.”
The Mvskoke people lived on what is now known as Georgia for over 13,000 years before undergoing militarized, forced removal through the Trail of Tears. Today, Mvskoke people are unjustly denied access to their own land, as the city continues to ram through plans for the wildly unpopular project known as Cop City.
“Since the 1832 Trail of Tears, where nearly half of our people were brutally murdered by the predecessors of the very same entities seeking to establish a massive ‘cop city,’ the colonial presence of the state and local governments of Georgia and police have unjustly denied Mvskoke people access to our homelands,” the letter stated.
Mvskoke ceremonial leaders are demanding an end to the Cop City project, an independent investigation into the police assassination of Tortugita, and the dismissal of all charges against forest defenders. “Cop city cannot be built in the Weelaunee forest, in the city of Atlanta, in the state of Georgia or anywhere in the Mvskoke homelands,” the letter stated.
“We, the Black Community of Atlanta, stand in solidarity with our Mvskoke relatives and are committed to maintaining our connection to each other and the land that binds us,” Reverend Keyenna Jones said.
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The full text of the eviction notice reads:
The contemporary Muscogee people are making the journey back to their homelands and hereby give notice to Mayor Andre Dickens, the Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta Police Department, the Atlanta Police Foundation, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s office, and so-called “Cop City” that you must immediately vacate Mvskoke homelands and cease violence and policing of Indigenous and Black people in Mvskoke lands. We also ask for an independent investigation into the assassination of our relative Tortuguita and that the trumped up charges be dropped against Weelaunee Forest defenders.
According to the history of Mvskoke Peoples, we originated in so-called Georgia near the Ocese Creek in the valley of the Ocmulgee River. As individual Tribal Nations, we lived as stewards and in relationship to this land for more than 13,000 years until the illegitimate state of Georgia negotiated with the tyrant Andrew Jackson for the militarized forced removal of Mvskoke and Cherokee relatives to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The state of Georgia has been operating illegitimately and without the consent of its original peoples ever since.
Georgia is the birthplace of oppressive policing, originating with Indigenous genocide and the Trail of Tears and the capture and enslavement of African descendants seeking freedom. Our ancestors who are buried here continue to suffer while the City of Atlanta and the State of Georgia deploy the very same escalated militarized tactics against Black, Indigenous and people of the global majority that were used in Indigenous genocide and Black enslavement. The state and the City of Atlanta have a historical, moral, and legal obligation to cease the clearing of trees and land and to cease developing militarized weaponized policing.
Since the 1832 Trail of Tears, where nearly half of our people were brutally murdered by the predecessors of the very same entities seeking to establish a massive “cop city,” the colonial presence of the state and local governments of Georgia and police have unjustly denied Mvskoke people access to our homelands. As ceremonial people, we have come home to gather medicines, have ceremony, and be welcomed by our ancestors. This is impossible for us when Atlanta and Dekalb County undertake plans to build a massively oppressive militarized policing facility within what is known as the Weelaunee forest (paying homage to the Mvskoke description of the South River, Ue Lane or “yellow water”). For us, as Mvskoke peoples, to have a safe homeland to return to, the “cop city” project must immediately be stopped. Cop city cannot be built in the Weelaunee forest, in the city of Atlanta, in the state of Georgia or anywhere in the Mvskoke homelands. Cop city cannot be built at all.
As the original relatives of this land and as ceremonial Mvskoke people, we stand in solidarity with the Black residents of Atlanta in opposition to continued genocide via cop city.
In solidarity,
Mekko Chebon, Mvskoke Ceremonial Leader
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