Indians or Citizens? Recognizing the Lumbee in the Jim Crow South

This presentation explores and dissects the themes of racial categorization, tribal identity, and the meaning of citizenship for the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina during and after the Second World War. Having failed to achieve federal recognition since first beginning their quest in the 1880s, the Lumbee finally accomplished it through Congressional action in 1956. But Congress left the tribe with no access to the benefits or services normally accorded recognized tribes, intensifying disagreements among tribal members. The faction that worked hardest to gain recognition had accommodated white supremacy, ironically by sustaining an image of the Lumbee as having mixed racial heritage while maintaining a distinct place in the Southern racial hierarchy. Yet other Lumbees, notably war veterans and their families, equated Jim Crow’s discrimination with the federal government’s reluctance to recognize the group, demanding that their rights as United States citizens also include recognition as members of an Indian nation. Traditional constructs of “race” and “citizenship” intertwined and shifted meanings in this discourse, heightened by the imposition of a new “termination” policy at the federal level. Policymakers in Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs allied with one another to encourage assimilation by terminating federal relationships with tribal nations. This climate paved the way for the success of Lumbee recognition in Congress, which, many Lumbees felt, failed to make them full citizens.