COLLECTIONS: The Lumbee (In Progress)

The Lumbee tribe of eastern North Carolina is comprised of a people who’s native identity—however culturally rich—has been fought over for more than a century by a federal government that doesn’t see them fitting neatly into any racial category.  

Though they have been officially designated by the state since 1885, and technically noted as Native Americans federally by The Lumbee Act of 1956, the same act precludes them from receiving the benefits afforded other tribes. Until then, the largest American Indian tribe east of the Mississippi remains unrecognized.