PEMBROKE, N.C. —Over lunch in Pembroke, James Locklear rattles off a list of distinguished Lumbee — tribal heroes who left Robeson County with lint in their pockets.
There’s Jim Thomas, the real estate developer who built the modern Los Angeles skyline.
And Harold “Iron Bear” Collins, power-lifter with six Guinness world records.
And Gene Locklear, the outfielder for the San Diego Padres — first Lumbee in the Major Leagues.
“There’s all this discussion about poverty among the Lumbees, but there’s success stories, too,” said Locklear, who writes, edits and delivers the newsletter Native Visions. “There’s a saying among the Lumbee: Root, little pig, or die. That’s what we’ve done.”
Others with Lumbee roots include “Melrose Place” actress Heather Locklear and college basketball coach Kelvin Sampson.
In the coming weeks, the Lumbee tribe members may finally claim a triumph that has eluded them since 1888: full federal recognition as a tribe. Of the eight Native American tribes in North Carolina, only the Cherokee own that status.
If Congress passes the Lumbee bill, it would mean millions of federal dollars for the tribe’s roughly 60,000 members and their turtle-shaped headquarters in Pembroke, bringing health care and education funding to one of North Carolina’s poorest corners.
But it would also deliver the final judgment on questions that have raged across ethnic and geographic lines for more than a century:
Who are the Lumbee, and what is a “real” American Indian?
Back at lunch in Pembroke, Locklear offers his answer.
“The biggest thing that’s going to change is this,” he said, tapping his forehead. “As a Native American, you’re treated as a second-class citizen. As a Lumbee, you’re treated not only as second-class citizen, but as a second-class Indian.
“What does an Indian look like?” he asked. “Lumbees get that all the time. Take me — bald-headed, goatee — I look like somebody you’d see in the WWE. But I’m as Indian as anybody else.”
YEARS AND YEARS OF DENIED RECOGNITION
The Lumbee have long watched Congress come within inches of granting recognition, only to yank it away when it seemed certain.
In a recent Senate hearing, Sen. Richard Burr counted 29 bills for recognition in 33 years, 15 introduced by Democrats and 14 by Republicans.
In past attempts, the Cherokee have lobbied against Lumbee recognition, fearing fewer dollars coming their way. Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms stood in the Lumbee’s path for years, arguing it would cost too much and create bureaucracy.
Talk of Lumbee recognition automatically triggers fear of a casino on Interstate 95, which would require a referendum that Locklear believes would fail. Christian faith runs deep in the tribe, and in Pembroke, many fear widespread gambling would add to problems with alcohol and drugs.
But this time, both of North Carolina senators, Burr and Sen. Thom Tillis, support full recognition. Last year, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden also backed the Lumbee fight during the presidential election.
“They have been in our state for hundreds of years,” Tillis said in a November hearing. “They have maintained their cultural identity. They have lived in lands that may have shrunk or others took property from them.”
But the Lumbee’s own history has complicated their recognition fight as much as anything else.
The tribe did not exist before Europeans arrived in North Carolina, when a variety of Indians clustered together in the swamps around Robeson County, fleeing war and disease.
They mingled with tribes who had already hunkered down there, combining several languages. Unlike other tribes, many Lumbee adopted Christianity and land-ownership they had learned from White settlers.
During the Civil War, many Lumbee were conscripted into the Confederate Army and forced to build Fort Fisher — involuntary soldiers that included both of James Locklear’s great-grandfathers.
The Lumbee’s most-storied hero, Henry Berrie Lowrie, led raids against the Home Guard that enforced conscription.
Later, the Lumbee would endure a layer of segregation that exceeded even the rest of the Jim Crow South. Schools and public facilities in Robeson County were designated for whites, Blacks or Indians.
Throughout its history, the tribe went by many names, known simply as “Indians” until 1885. The state chose Croatan, then later the Cherokee Indians of Robeson County. Finally, in 1953, the tribe named itself for the Lumber River that bisects its land.
The Lumbee had built their own school, which grew into the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Later, they would battle the Ku Klux Klan at Hayes Pond outside Maxton, chasing away white supremacists who had threatened them.
Still, in 1956, Congress passed the Lumbee Act, which gave them recognition as Indians but denied them any benefits afforded to other tribes. No other tribe in the country exists under these rules.
A POLITICAL, NOT RACIAL, DESIGNATION
To many among the Lumbee, the tribe is punished for being insufficiently Indian even though racist policies aimed at Indians robbed them of their identity.
In Pembroke, Nancy Strickland Fields is curator of UNC-Pembroke’s Museum of the Southeast American Indian, a job she took after growing up in a Lumbee community in Charlotte.
She supports recognition and knows it would help the tribe, but at the same time, she doesn’t need the government’s seal of approval. To her, the idea of someone deciding her identity with the stroke of a pen is artificial.
Recognition is a political designation, she said, not a racial designation. She knows many Lumbee don’t think like she does, and they would see this long-sought victory as legitimizing.
But to her, to even question who is American Indian is to practice colonialism.
“Consider the pressures,” she said. “War, removal, marginalization, boarding schools to remove Indian identification, assimilation policies, discouraging speaking your language. For survival, safety, sense of self, maybe you go underground. To then turn and use these things against us, then to question are you Indian, isn’t that the ultimate colonial flex?”
‘I WOULDN’T DEPEND ON THE GOVERNMENT FOR ANYTHING’
In nearby Maxton, Evert Locklear is thought to be the oldest living Lumbee. At 102, he can recall growing up in rural Prospect, where the family house had only one fireplace and grew so cold in winter that ice would sometimes form on his bed.
The only school was too far to walk, so he opted not to go — farming for what food the family ate.
Still, Locklear served in the U.S. Navy throughout World War II, working in an automotive repair unit in the Pacific, where he saw Pearl Harbor after the bombing.
When Locklear got back from the war, he took a job in an auto body shop, earning $22.50 a week to feed what he describes as “eight head of children.”
He continued working on cars until he turned 97 and broke his hip. To this day, he tends his patch of collards with the help of a walker.
“I’m ready to work now if I could giddy-up to it,” he said from his living room chair. “I’m in the family of God, and I love it. I love it.”
On a December afternoon, Locklear gathered with five generations of his family to talk about the prospect of Lumbee recognition — a tribal goal for all of their lifetimes.
“I reckon it would be a good thing being recognized,” said his son, Panuel, 79. “But it don’t bother me, recognized or not, because I am who I am. I wouldn’t depend on the government for anything. I’m on my own.”
None of the Maxton family put much stock in federal money reaching the tribe. Several recalled times they’d asked for small bits of help and got none. Their impression: Lumbee money goes to the politically connected, and those who are hoping to get it would be better off working.
“That Lumbee card you have in your pocket don’t mean a thing,” said Panuel. “You what that means? More money for Pembroke.”
Lumbee Tribal Administrator Tammy Maynor referred questions to outgoing Tribal Chair Harvey Godwin Jr., who did not return calls. No one on the 21-member Tribal Council responded to email questions about how much money might come from recognition or how it might be spent.
Meanwhile, Traci Watson, Locklear’s 33-year-old great granddaughter, doesn’t plan to get a Lumbee card, which requires filling out a four-page application and taking a DNA test.
“What’s it done for me?” she asked. “It’s all who you know. It ain’t never done nothing for me before now.”
Through five generations, the Locklears in Maxton scoff at the idea of being second-class in any way.
NOT GETTING TOO EXCITED
Back in Pembroke, James Locklear compares the buzz over Lumbee recognition to news reports on a hurricane. Out in the ocean, it looks enormous. But once it hits town, it’s a drizzle.
He won’t let himself get too excited. He remembers getting caught in the spirit while a student at UNC-Pembroke in 1992, only to watch hope disappear.
But if recognition does happen this time — and he has a hunch it will — Locklear hopes North Carolina’s other unrecognized tribes can piggyback on the Lumbees’ success.
“There’s not much difference between the Waccamaw Siouan, the Coharie, the Meherrin,” he said. “My opinion, same people, basically.”
