Lumbees are an integral part of UNCP

By Shelly Romero
Guest Writer

I am an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe and am also on the Chancellor’s List at this university. I believe in education as an opportunity and responsibility for creating a better world for the next seven generations of children of all races of people, and I am thankful to the Great Spirit for the talents he has given all people to use for the Greater Good.

Yet as a Native American, I find it disturbing to hear and read many of the attitudes, and for lack of a better term, “ignorance” that abound regarding the Lumbee tribe and its more that 44,000 enrolled members. The Lumbee people make up the second largest Indian group in the United States, surpassed only by the Navajo, a tribe of about 108,000.

The sweat, blood and tears of Lumbees built UNC-Pembroke. This university was founded by local Native Americans as the first school at which we could receive formal education. This was due to existing segregation, which resulted in Native Americans being unwelcome and refused admittance to other educational institutions. This system of exclusion resulted in a spiraling cycle of illiteracy for a majority of Native Americans.

Knowing the importance of education, Lumbees had the foresight to create an institution that would provide higher education for our people so that we could continue to teach the children of our community.

Thus, this university was founded to counter racial discrimination. It has never been about what someone “owes” the Lumbee people, beyond the right to exist in equality - ideals espoused by the Declaration of Independence, which stated that “all men are created equal.”

The reality is that of 250 professors here at UNCP, only 11 are Native American. Read it however you like; this is not equality.

I would love to see the university implement the necessary policies to address and triumph over its lack of minority professors, including – but not limited to – Native American professors.

I often hear comments about the origins of the Lumbee tribe and our supposed lack of continued or sustainable culture. We have a culture, we have a spirit, we have a heart and we have a foundation! Every time you see a Lumbee on this campus - whether student, employee or teacher – we are continuing our tradition by keeping our community and our culture alive. We needn’t walk around dressed in full regalia and feathers just to prove we are Native Americans. And although there are wonderful craftspeople within our community, we don’t solely make pottery, baskets and beadwork, nor do we need to in order to justify our culture in the 21st century.

Lumbees are recognized by Congress as Native Americans. However, due to the Lumbee act of 1956, we are not entitled to benefits from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a plight that befell many other tribes whose existences were effectively erased by the Termination Act of 1953. But legislation alone cannot erase a proud people, and the Lumbee tribe continues.

There is a lack of unbiased, in-depth archival and field research. Instead we are bombarded by repetition of previously published accounts by those who would like all to believe that we descend from a handful of European settlers instead of the many thousands of Native Americans that existed throughout North America.

I implore readers to do their own research. Until you come to know the people of this land and of this tribe – including the elders, mothers, fathers and children – you can never truly know the Lumbee Tribe and our heritage, culture or history.

Many of the Lumbees of this area descended from Cheraw and related Siouan-speaking Indians who lived in what now is Robeson County. Many also descended from Tuscarora bloodlines and migrated from the area of what is now Bertie County, between the Roanoke and Pamlico Rivers.

Perhaps this is a call to our own tribal members to pay close attention to our elders and to the history they have carried down from previous generations, and to relearn and teach the traditions that have been part of our community for longer than might appear at first glance.

Genocide is “the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.” Though the history of America has included the genocide of Native Americans, it does not have to be the final word in the future of Native Americans.

Despite all odds, the Lumbee tribe has survived and proudly carries on the legacy of our ancestors as we enter the 21st century. We are also proud to continue our legacy of being an integral part of a university that upholds the belief that all people should have the right to an education regardless of color, national origin, religion, sex, age, or handicap.