JUSTICE GEORGE THOMPSON
Justice George Thompson Jr. resides in Henryetta, Oklahoma. He attended Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas; the University of Tulsa; and Oklahoma State University. He is a veteran of the United States Air Force and retired after serving for twenty-eight years with the City of Tulsa Engineering Services. He also served for four years as a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Housing Authority Board. As of November 2019, Justice Thompson has served on the Greater Tulsa Area Indian Affairs Commission.
Justice Thompson was raised with a strong emphasis in Mvskoke culture and has been active in Mvskoke tradition his entire life. He is a member of the Hickory Ground Tribal Town (ocevpofv) and is of the Bird (fuswvlke) Clan. He is a fluent Mvskoke-speaker and is regularly called upon to give presentations to our Nation’s youth in the Mvskoke language. He strongly believes that language preservation is essential to the overall effort to preserve all Mvskoke customs and traditions. His father was Mekko at Arbeka Ceremonial Ground and his mother was a member of Hickory Ceremonial Ground. For the last forty years, Justice Thompson has been Mekko (Kosa Mekko) of Hickory Ceremonial Ground. He is humbled and honored to serve as Mekko and looks forward to fulfilling his lifetime leadership commitment.
As Hickory Ground Mekko, Justice Thompson is a plaintiff in Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Poarch Band of Creek Indians; a civil suit filed in federal court to protect and oppose the desecration of ancestral homelands in Alabama. In 2012, Justice Thompson was awarded the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Principal Chief’s Medal of Honor for his leadership role in the effort to preserve Mvskoke ancestral burial grounds. He was also induction into the Mvskoke Hall of Fame in October of 2013. Further, in 2019, Justice Thompson was presented the Kenneth Anquoe Lifetime Achievement Award and was selected as an honoree for the 2019 AARP Oklahoma Indian Elder Honors.
Justice Thompson was nominated and confirmed to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court in February of 2013, and is currently serving his second six-year term on the Court. Justice Thompson intends to rely on his intimate knowledge of Mvskoke culture and tradition to shape the judicial decisions in which he participates. He is confident that fairness and impartiality can be best achieved by balancing modern methods of jurisprudence with older, traditional Mvskoke approaches to dispute resolution. Justice Thompson served as Vice-Chief Justice for the Supreme Court from 2014 to 2019.