Published: October 29, 2009 08:09 am      

Ambassador Charles Blackwell to speak

ADA—An individual’s role in their state, nation and tribe will be the topic of Chickasaw Ambassador to the United States Charles Blackwell’s keynote address during the 2009 Oklahoma Political Science Association Conference Thursday, Nov. 5, at East Central University. 

The address, entitled “The Three R’s of Three C’s” begins at 7:30 p.m. at Ataloa Theatre, located in East Central University’s Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center.         

Christine Pappas, Associate Professor of Political Science at ECU, said that the lecture will concern the complexity of Native American citizenship in the United States.

“Ambassador Blackwell will discuss what it is like to be a citizen not only of the U.S. and Oklahoma, but also of a sovereign Indian nation,” she said. 

“With nearly 50,000 Native Americans in Oklahoma, this is an important but little understood issue.”

This lecture, aimed at a general audience, is part of a collaboration formed between the East Central University Political Science Department and Ambassador Blackwell with the purpose of providing ECU  political science students the opportunity to understand the political process at a higher level. 

Blackwell received his bachelor’s degree in Education from East Central State College in 1964 and his law degree from the University of New Mexico in 1972, where he also served as an Assistant Dean and Adjunct Faculty member. He has served as the Chickasaw Nation’s ambassador for more than twenty years.

For more information, phone Pappas at (580) 559-5640.