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Crow Chairman Met Obama at White House

By the Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Call it a White House meeting of brothers.

The chairman of the Crow Tribe, Cedric Black Eagle, met President Obama in the Oval Office recently, a year after Obama became part the Crow's Whistling Water Clan through a tribal adoption.

Black Eagle said that when he was at the White House this month he told Obama, "It's good to see you, brother."

The opportunity to meet with the president while in Washington, D.C., to discuss energy policy was unexpected, Black Eagle said.

'I Think He Understands ... the Idea of Being Adopted'

Leaders of some American Indian tribes met with federal representatives and a federal official asked Black Eagle to stay behind as the others prepared to leave for another meeting. Black Eagle said he then was informed the president wished to see him, and he was taken to the West Wing of the White House.

Discussion topics during an Oval Office meeting of 10 minutes or so included health care on the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana.

"And he asked about my mom and dad and how they were," Black Eagle said. "And it was personal. I think he respects the personal idea of being adopted into an Indian tribe, an Indian family."

During a Montana campaign swing in May 2008, Obama visited Crow Agency and was adopted into the tribe by Black Eagle's parents, Sonny and Mary.

Cedric Black Eagle met Obama in Butte last year, first in April and then in July, and in August at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Black Eagle was part of a Crow contingent in the January parade celebrating the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C.

"I'm in D.C. quite a bit and I look at the White House, and we've done the White House tour," Black Eagle said. "But I didn't think I'd end up in the Oval Office to meet with the president, to take up any of his time. I was really surprised and humbled by it."