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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida
LUM 125 AB
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
MOORE HALL P.S.U.
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
DATE: MARCH 5, 1973
TAPE: ONE
SIDE: ONE
PAGE: ONE
S: They're not just scarce positions anybody
can 4e aJ ^ \t\ o4 -- And in this sense I think
there's something very very important to a lot of Indians, and very
very good about the way that they got it. Just one other thing that
I want to talk about, and that making a living for Indiansp,, .1_j),1
Now I think it's important, and perhaps you know. Uh, the Indians
came here, came to Baltimore in the Second World War, and they were
then the defense industry, Baltimore being a major industrial center.
And really, as you go north from uh...Robeson County, it's the first
big industrial center that you're going to hit. And I suspect that's
one of the reasons why so many stopped off in Baltimore and stayed
there. Baltimore uh, really is quite a diversified industrial com-
munity. It uh, was once a port city, a major port, and still is a
major port, but it also has many other things. A big GM plant, a big
Bethlahem plant, it has a lot of small industries, it was well known
for the needle trades. But the big thing that Indians went into
after the Second World War, was something else happening in many
cities throughout the United States. The building boom. There was a
great deal of building going on in Baltimore, and many Indians when
they came there, went into the building trade. Now there really are
two uh, parts of the building trade. There were then, and probably
________________________
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...still are. There's new construction, and there's the remodel-
ing of old buildings. The unions then controled the new construction.
And the remodeling, the unions in Baltimore didn't bother with.
This was left for the non-union people, and that's where the Indians
went. What this really means is that Lumbee Indians really took much
lower pay w- d r. than the union men were getting
in the new construction. Their pay was considerably less. But it was
still quite good pay. And I sort of feel quite strongly that the
Indians generally in Baltimore really are not at all.atzthe uh.,.
poverty level. They were not three years ago, and they-still are not
now. They're really not, uh, they're far from the unskilled type of
many who are migrants to cities. They're people who really picked up
the building trade skills, and a lot of other skills, and have done
reasonably well in Baltimore. The point is though, even if they're
not at the bottom, they only do moderately well in the city. I want
to say one other thing about the uh, work of the Indians in Baltimore.
One thing that struck me very strongly a few years ago, and has-come
out particularly this summer. A lot of Indians...of the Indians have
joined unions. The unions in recent years have been very accepting
of Indians. And there is an Indian for example, who is the president
of a steel workers local, a Lumbee Indian, president of a steel
workers local...a lot of shop stewards around there. The Indians feel
very strongly about the importance of unions. Now that is a little
different between now and several years ago. A few years ago, if they
2
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...joined, maybe they joined because they had to. They were in
union shops and had to join. Now a lot of them feel quite strongly
about unions. And I this past summer gave them some sort of hypo-
thetical questions. Like: If your boss...say if your union wanted
to go on a strike and for more money, and if the boss were to say
to you..."Don't go out with the union, I'm going to give you more
pay." Would you stay on, or wouldn't you stay on? And almost univ-e
versally among the Indians,I.asked..'neothey-wouldn't stay out. They
felt they needed the union in order to be able to be sure that if
there was a pay raise, they would keep that. They said the boss
after while wouldn't give them the...I think this is one of the im-
portant things that Indians have learned in the city. I can add to
a number of other things, and I'd be glad to respond to questions
about the Indians. Esentially I want to say, in the area of acultur-
ation...or what we call aculturation...I really feel that Indians
have basically madatained their own group. You know essentially the
Indians friends are...the Indians have friends among other Indians.
But it...uh, this is something that Indians are beginning to move
away from in Baltimore. There are friends being picked up in other
areas. But if you're going to talk about the basic friendship net-
works of Indians, you're going to say that most of the Indians
basically have friends among other Indians. Uh, this is what I
would call nh, kind of structural pluralism you have in Baltimore.
I want to point out to you that Baltimore is a very ethnic divided
3
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...towm. Baltimore has all kinds of ethnic groups, Poles and
Italians. Now what do you think the Italians think. The Italian
friends are mostly among other Italians, and the Polish friends
are mostly among other Polish. It is not unusual for the Indians
to be that-way. But I have found the Indians really-muchemerei.e
receptive towards moving out toward people on the outside. So that
I do think they're in a stage of transition now They're uh, feeling
strongly about holding on to being Indian, and yet there is also...
there're many interesting things about people on the outside that
Indians are beginning to find out about. It is hard to predict any
future as far as the Indians are concerned in Baltimore. I do think
they will hold on to their Indianess, but I think there're going to
continue to be all kinds of changes among them. And a number of them
are just going to feel afterwhile...marrying other people...that
maybe they don't want to be Indians And this is something, that if
a strong Indian movement develops over here, it's going to be as
strong, it's going to be felt over there. And this will be one of
the ways in which Indians can really feel strongly unified.
M.C. Thank you very much. Dave do you want to get this out of here?
NEW SPEAKER
S: Maybe one good-thing about coming third, and almost last is maybe I
can get to play the devil's advocate, and uh, and let you squirm
for a minute, and turn to the light side. Went down to Wellington
last summer to make a talk, and I was introduced in a peculiar way.
4
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: And so I decided maybe I'll uh...change that introduction tonight,
and say I'm in Florida as a demographer, but after being intro-
duced as a Democrat uh, down in Wellington...I just don't want to
be known as a demographer...in those terms. A couple little funny
stories I'd like to tell to get your thought patterns on what we're
trying to do in Robeson County. I know you must have heard numerous
stories and accounts of the little "Johnny Jokes." Johnny comes in
to mommy and daddy to ask various questions. The question thatI-;so
suppose has been used, and befuddled all children at some point in
their lives, is...where do babies come from? And so a couple of
little stories of Johnny then, asking mommy...where do babies come
from? One, Johnny comes tearing in to mommy and says, "Hey momm,
where did I come from?" And she says, Oh no! This poor child, is he
ready for life?" And she says, "Yeah, he's ready." So she took him
in on the sofa and sat down and proceeded to tell him the story of
life. About half way through, Johnny says,"Whoa mommy...that's not
what I mean. Billy comes from South Carolina...where do I come from?"
Well, Greig and Abe have talked about migration, where people
originate and move to hither and there. The other little story,
Johnny comes in with the same question, and says, "Hey mommy, where
do babies come from?" "Oh my gosh! the same thing, is he ready?"
Well, she says, "No, he's not ready. I can't tell him where babies
come from." So she says, "Johnny it's like this." She says,p"Babies
come,from seeds. And God takes a seed and puts it in mommy3s
tummy, and that seed grows, and that's where babies come from."
5
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: Well, that satisfied little Johnny deep enough. He went tearing out.
Later that day, he was eating an apple, and when you're a hungry
little boy eating an apple, sometimes you eat too deeply, and you
find seeds. Ah...he got one of those forward ideas...when the
bright light bulb come on...blop...seeds and babies. So he goes
tearing out in the yard, digs himself a hole, and puts his apple
seed in the whole. .goeszawayahappi*y. Didn't think about it any-
more until the next day when he came tearing out of his house, as
he hit the ground, he saw that fresh mound of dirt. And that light
bulb came on again, but sitting on that mound of dirt was the ugliest
old toad frog that Johnny has ever seen in all his life. And he
looked at the toad frog, and the toad frog looked at Johnny, and he
looked at the toad frog, and the toad...you know you can go on all
night and you get tired of looking. And finally he summed up all his
courage, and said, "If I weren't your daddy...I'd stomp the hell out
of you." Now now...we demographers study people, and I think that's
the way I'd like for you to think of what we do. As we study people,
and we study these three processes, as I've tried to
stories about Johnny. We study about birth, we study about people
dying, and we study about people moving. As I say, one of those stor-
ies has a defense for what I'm going to say. Do you know about the
lion in thb-jungle? I thought I did until I started telling some
students one day, and they corrected me so many- times. You correct
me when I get the story wrong. The lion woke up one morning and sA,
6
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: "I'm the king of the jungle." Says, "I'm going to go out and find out
if that's not true." And so he went bombing through the jungle, and
he came to a chimpanzee, and he said, "Chimpqnzee...who's the king
of the jungle?" And the chimpanzee looked at him and said, "You are
oh mighty lion." And the lion beamed and threw out his chest even
further, and walked on. He came to a skunk...he says, "Skunk...who's
the king of the jungle?" Skunk says, "Oh you are oh mighty lion."
And the lion was feeling pretty good, walking tall all the time. He
came to a clearing in the jungle and came to an old elephant stand-
ing there grazing away in the trees. He said, "Elephant...who's the
king of the jungle?" And the elephant et eating. He said, "Elephant,
I'm going to ask you twice...who's the king of the jungle?" And the
elephant kept eating. "Elephant...I'm going to ask you the last time,
who's the king of the jungle?" The elephant took his snout or trunk,
or whatever you call it...reached down and caught the old lion
around his stomach...his belly, whatever you call it. Waled over to
this big tree, and started slamming...WHAM WHAM WHAM, now you can go
on, you know, telling, again, all night...so he put the lion down, and
the lion went dragging off to the edge of the clearing, and he got
to the safety of the trees, and he turned around and looked over his
shoulder and said, "You didn't have to get so mad because you didn't
know the right answer." Well, I guess I have to differ from my uh,
two colleagues who have gone before me, because I'm not at a point
to give you the right answers yet. I would like to take this opportunity
7
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...to express our appreciation to all of you, and I hope we cap-
tured some of you in our studies. That's one thing that we've failed
tp teach our students as we teach them how to do research projects,
is to go back and to thank people for taking part. And so I do
sincerely express our appreciation for the willingness of people in
this county to take part. Four years ago a group of young PhDs
embarked on a journey because they felt that being so bright with
all new degrees that they ought to go out and seek the truth and
find the right answers, happened to come upon the ideathat there was
a need to discover further knowledge in the area of these "Johnny
jokes" I suppose. And so we sat down to try to map out a plan of
action where we could come to understand the process of why Johnnys
ask questions. We became interested in Robeson County...because
Robeson County is in the book as one of the poorest counties in the
nation, and yet at the same time, if you look at another set of
books...it is one of the richest counties in so far as the amount of
agricultural products that are sold. So we were interested in a,
can I say poor county, to see what's taken place. At the same time
Robeson County was a unique county because it afforded us an op-
portunity to look not at the usual color breakdown, the racial
breakdown of whites and blacks, but gave us a third group to
consider. We could look not only at the whites and blacks, but also
at Indians. So there was a second important reason why we were
interested in the county. A third reason which finally captured our
8
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...interest and brought us to this county to study families, was
the fact that say in a demographer's language...people language...
Robeson County is a rural county. As one looks at the storehouse of
information where people have studied the peopling process over
time, you find all the major studies, starting with the Indianapolis
Study back in the 40s and coming to the Princeton Studies in the 50s,
and the growth of American families in the 50s and 60s have been
primarily with urban places...big cities. And so we discovered what
we thought then was a vacuum, in-whattweeknow about the peopling
process. That there were very few...no major studies, let's put it
that way, studying the peopling process in a rural county, a poor
county, a tri-racial county. So we set out, and we were fortunate
indeed to have the blessings of the National Institute of Child
Health and Development. And they awarded us with funds that we might
conduct a two-year study here in Robeson County. Well the other
unique thing,-while I'm talking about thecunique thingsthat we de-
cided to try to accomplish, and I think it will be the strongest part
of the study that will emerge, and one which I think all of you along
with us can be proud of. This will be one of the first major studies
that has attempted to deal both with males and females in under-
standing the peopling process. The majority of the previous studies
have attempted to gain data only from female response. And pre-
dominantly white female response. So we think we have an opportunity
with the data which we have just completed the collection process
9
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...as some of you are probably aware, in the last...two ot three weeks
ago. We think we'll have some unique data, and we think we'll have a
great deal that we can say to our country, and that we can say to you.
So I look forward to code back andrtelllyoigwhat we do find once we
get some of the findings found. Let me take a few more minutes and tell
you some of the things that we are aprticularly interested in pursuing.
I'll name some of the major variables that people have looked at before.
trying to understand: the idea of residence, and where...whether you
live in a rural area, or an urban area: income-wise, and just tied up
in a concept that sociologists call "social class." I know you must have
read countless accounts of the relationship between the peopling process
and one's social class. So we decided to come in and take a look at some
other variables that haven't been explored in great detail. We wanted
to try to understand people's values...what they feel to be most
important to them.Also, to look at what people think about various
items, and what their attitudes are towards various issues...to look
at the goals, or the end results that people direct their daily lives
towards. And perhaps most important of all...was to look again at
what sociologists call "social relationships." And we wanted to get
some understanding as to what takes place between man and wife. And
how this affects their behavior, particularly their behavior in the
peopling process. So we uh, come in, and uh, I'm not going to ask you
to identify yourself. If you were part of our survey you'll recognize
some of the...the variables or questions then that we are pursuing
along these lines, trying to get a goals, attitudes, values, and
10
o SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
S INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...social relationships. And we have asked a couple of students to res-
pond as to how do they divide the labor in the household. Who carries
out the trash, uh, who washes clothes, who spanks the kids, who decides
to have kids...And in turn, looking at these issues in relationship to
many other variables. Who does what, who decides what, and what do you
do with your family, and how does what you do with your family
effect other parts of your individual life. Do you do things as a
family, do you do things as an individual...how does this effect the
decision to have a family in the first place. Well uh, we have asked
a number of question also about values or "value orientations" as we have
expressed it. Those things that we think people hold to be important.
Trying to decide if people have directed their thoughts to the future,
are we living in the present, or are we clinging to the old and past.
Not saying one is better than another, but simply wanting to see if we
can find where people are. When I was in school years ago, one of the
first things they tried to teach us as young demographers, was they
used to...to uh, come back and make some statement that a person...
general statements like religion, and...and social class cause one to
have the size of family that one has. And that translated down into
specifics sometimes, that Catholics have the most children because of
their religion. And blacks have the most children because of the color
of their skin. Uh, one can quickly see how this has no real impact on
what you do, so we need to go beyond that surface. Color of skin doesn't
really affect what we do does it? Or is color of our skin symbolic of
something else. Uh but .then we have discovered now that it's not
religion or Catho...Catholicism as such that causes us to have children,
11
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANPORD DIAL
S: ...but ene family comes out of Puerto Rico...is that that particular
group of Catholics just didn't talk to each other, that is husbands
and wives. And so one important part of what we're trying to look at
then...is how much do husbands and wives talk to each other in Robeson
County, Uh, I could go on and on and on telling you about uh, variables
that we want to look at, and as the others have said, I think I'll
stop, and say I'll be glad to talk to any of you...to allay your fears
that uh...we don't know anybody in this county as individuals. Some
persons have been concerned about the sensitivity of the issues,and uh,
we just look upon it as trying to understand what a group of people
uh...think and feel, and how they are acting about the peopling pro-
cess.
M.C. Well thank you very much Dave. Uh, food ready? They say the foods
ready, the coffee is hot, so why don't we have a coffee break, and
then come back, and Gene Breakston will sort of...he will wrap up, and
then we'll have open discussion.
M.C. Yeah, and Mrs. Hunt and...
U:
M.C. Yes, appreciate it very much. And uh, I see the Director of the
Office of Communications of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from Wash-
ington D.C., none other than the first Lumbee pilot of World War II,
retired commander, Timothy Oxendine. Come be with us again tomorrow
night. I believe I saw W.J. Strickland around here. He's been up in
12
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
M.C. Washington, uh, getting involved in the Indian world. W.J. welcome
back. I'm only recognizing people who are out of town, all the rest
of you, uh, you know you carry special recognition 365 days to the
year. Thank you. I hope all of you will return tomorrow night, and
bring someone with you because we will lose a few tomorrow to Raleigh
on the double voting issue...might not be back in time for the
session, so that means that everyone needs to get on the telephone
tomorrow, and invite at least five people back for tomorrow night
because we'll have something real good for you tomorrow night.
Brenda Brooks: If there's anybody interested in going to Raleigh tomorrow,
we will be leaving at nine-thirty in the morning...leaving from LRDA.
We have money for gas if you will drive. If you can't drive, and you'll
go we'll feed you on the way, but -puw- t, .
M.C. But you're going to be back for the session?
B.B. Yes sir.
U: That double voting thing is...those of you who have heard me before
know it's very important.
B: We'll break double voting and be right back.
M.C. I say, are you going to be back for the session? O.k. well Gene
Breakston is now going to tell us what we said.
G: I think rather than simply give you back what was said, that perhaps uh,
it'd insult your intelligence if I did that, but uh, rather try to bring
it together, a framework that maybe we can, uh that maybe we can take
some shots at it. Before I do this uh, uh, Professor Peck, if I have
13
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...your permission, may I recognize two people?
P: Sure.
G: Uh, Venus Jacobs, and Don Locklear, who I understand worked very
hard in getting out this marvelous crowd tonight. And I think
all of us appreciate having somebody to talk to, and they're
working on that.
If I were an outsider, say from England or France, and I was
asked to come in and study the Indian situation in America,
and more specifically, the Indian situation here...I might
begin by making an inventory of the assets and liabilities of
your situation. Because I may be an outsider, I would run the
risk of making some inaccurate statements because I would not
note the specific details. You know some things about your
situation that no outsider could hope to know. On the other
hand, I would also perhaps bring to the study a sense of ob-
jectivity, and perhaps a sense of being detached that might
be useful in looking at where you are, and what you hope to
be...that might not be gained by a person who was too closely
associated with the situation. Much like I ask a person who I
consider to be very sharp, and very tough, and very honest to
tell me a few weeks ago how he thought I was doing in my job.
Now when you do that you must get prepared to uh...hear some
things that may not be very flattering. I asked him to give me
the good news, and the bad news. Uh, may I tell a story...they're
14
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...a bunch of good news and bad news jokes. The airline pilot
who announces while they're in the air to the people in the
cabin. He says, "I want to announce some good news and some
bad news. I'm going to give you the bad news first. We are
hopelessly lost. And now for the good news...we're making ex-
cellent speed." Well let's look at the bad news of the Indian
situation in America. And uh...perhaps also, more specifically,
your own. As for the liabilities, Indians in North Carolina are
a rural people. Rural life has obvious advantages, such as:
privacy, no smog, no traffic jams, friendly neighbors, you can
go on listing them. But it has some obvious disadvantages.
Services such as: phone, water, mail delivery, medical facilities,
schools...are costly to provide when people are widely dispersed.
In some cases, in some rural areas...some of these services are
not available at all. Some Indians for example in the peopling
process in New Mexico must go a hundred miles to the nearest
hospital to have a baby delivered in a hospital. They're that
far from a doctor...that far from medical facilities. Paved r
roads and rural rectification, it shames us a great deal, but
they're still disadvantages. Rural schools, rural churches tend
to be smaller, and the*fraeless...less able than their city
counterparts to provide some services for their constituents.
Rural people in recent years have received less and less
political attention. I was associated with an evaluation of
15
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...Federal Programs for three years. That program was brought
into being essentially to see that rural people got some of
the services that urban people were getting. And I would say
the present administration also tends to give more attention
to urban problems than to rural. So the fact that you're
rural in some ways is a liability. True, as Indians you are a
third group in a society which tends to recognize only two
groups...black and white. Your historic struggle to maintain
a separate identity with separate churches and separate schools
is well known and needs little elaboration here. The point is,
that when the nation as a whole considers inter-group relations,
it tends to think in terms of black and white. A third defecit
is, that relative to whites, Indians as a category are not
wealthy. If you were, you would be better able to effectively
control your destiny. Here in Pembroke you have been able to
make some economic gains which are impressive. I believe that
is also true of the Indians in Sampson County, and also accord-
ing to the reports tonight, uh, also in Baltimore. In Halifax
County, and Warren County, North Carolina, in Washington County,
Alabama where I've been studying Indians there, and in San Duval
County, New Mexico...Indians are poorest of the poor. Third...or
fourth, historical Indians have had educational defects.
Indian schools were often a thrid system of schools in many
counties, poorly financed by the government, and often paid for
16
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...out of the meager resources of Indians themselves. If they
wanted schools they had to do it themselves. This is a matter
of historic record. Books and other learning resources were
scarce, teachers were poorly paid...students were often unable
to attend school regularly because they were needed to work on
farms. That still is a problem in a society, where if you're
born poor, and you want to move up the economic ladder...you
need to get quality education. And lacking quality education,
you have problems. It has already been mentioned that teaching
kids in school was a problem in some areas...it is a problem
in rural areas...it is a problem in the cities as well. Dr.
McClosky has mentioned a possible problem area for Indians
in Baltimore...the decline of the church. Historicaly, if you-
look at the records...the church has been an important element
in fostering a sense of identity. You look back at the early
indian schools that were established in this county and Sampson
County, and elsewhere in the state...many times they were an
outgrowth of thedSynda|:sTho61-ofsome-othegaorgafnization. So
the sense of Indian identity has been inextricably linked with
the viability and strength of the church. I see those as a few
deficits, problem areas, uh, negative areas if you wish. Now -
for the assets. Indians now enjoy the national reputation among
many whites, of being cultural heroes. Many whites are now
quite happy to find that one of their ancestors was an Indian.
As a matter of fact, there are so many whites that claim Indian
17
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...ancestors, that one must beleive that those early Indians
must have been real men and real women. It is a fact that
Indians have come to be heroes of the American past. And so I
think that there is now a reservoir of goodwill which can be
tapped whenever appeals are made for resources. I think the
sense...the sense in which Indians have been forced into
segregated facilities...schools, churches, has been a mixed
kind of blessing, for the churches and the schools have become
training grounds for leaders. It would be difficult to estimate
the impact Pembroke State University has had upon the Indians
of the state and elsewhere. As has already been mentioned, I
forget who it was that said it...this university provided young-
sters with role models. They...they could see that an Indian
could grow up to be a preofessor in a university. And Indian
could do something...uh...earn a good living, be respected. And
I think the fact that right here in this county Indians had .---
their own institution of higher learning has been a very very
important thing. And I don't know how to estimate the total
impact of...of this school. For example, the Tallowwa Indian
School in its early years...was almost entirely staffed by per-
sons who had originally gotten their training here. You've been
able to acquire land...a good bit of it. I went just to get some
feel for this to the uh, old record books today, and looked at
some of these early deeds that were given to Indians. You held
18
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...on to land since the seventeen hundreds. Uh, you said that
home is Robeson County. Here's where people own land. Here's
where people have put down their roots. It's been an important
thing. And I would say if I might give any advice for the
future...aquire land, and hold on to it. There is an important
sense in America, in which the land owner has had a better deal
than the person who did not own land. County officials recog-
nize people who own land. You tend to get a better deal in
courts. And uh, so I think that this has been an important part
of your heritage. Dr. Peck has mentioned your resources which
enables you to adapt to the stress of urban living. This sense
of having to struggle for your identity here, and maintain your
Indianness gave you a strength that has come into uh, good use
in Baltimore. Dr. McClosky has mentioned the role of the
Indian Center. And I think he has also touched an important
area when he mentioned the occupational aspirations of Indians.
Had a young man ride with me today. He says, I don't know what
I'm going to do. Said I'm thinking about learning brick laying.
And I encouraged him in this. I said you acquire that skill and
you'll be able to support yourself anywhere you go in the coun
country if you learn to be a good one. But then there's been a
shift, away from uh...uh, from the trades...the skill trades,
to the professional, and perhaps this is told to him. Uh, it
was mentioned also that you have learned the worthwhileness of
pulling together. Uh...I think this is terribly important. It
19
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
G: ...manifests itself in union orientation in Baltimore. The
Indians in Robeson County, Sampson County...somewhat later
in Halifax and Warren County...did establish an institute,
did learn to pull together. Had their schools, their churches,
their political organizations...this has not been true of all
Indian groups. One of the large Indian groups in South Alabama
so far as I know, never established an Indian club, never
established many of their own churches nor their own uh...
system of higher education. And as a result, they have not
been able to adjust as well to some of the stresses of urban
life. Well, as I see it, these are some of the pluses and some
of the minuses in assessing the situation. I hope that this a0
provides a vehicle for some of the questions that you might
want to -the members of
this?
M.C. Well, do you want to...well you stay here too, you've got
something to say. Dave you want to come...Dave?
U: I'd like to know what he's determined so far, if anyhting,
uh...if he hasn't determined anything, how are we to get
a positive report?
S: Unfortunately we haven't determined anything yet. If you will
write to me or give me your name and address tonight, I'll
be happy to keep it, and I'll send you a copy of any articles
that come out. We will be sending some summaries of the
20
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...study down to the countfI
U: kLerv Doc- H'-bet when you send it down to the county
it maybe never gets here.
S: I've got a couple of A[R.L. a [ejL where people
have told me so already. If you'll tell me where some places
are you'd like to see some copies...I'll try to get some
down.
U: For the purposes of Dave's study, how are you going to define
a Lumbee Indian, and what will be your definition of a Lumbee
Indian?
S: It was simple identification, the interview process was
two-fold. We sent a team of interviewers to each household
in the sample, one the first visit, and asked the person in
that household to identify to which racial group do you be-
long. And so each household has identified itself as one of
the three groups we're looking at.
U: Now you will include in your study the people in Baltimore,
the people...what peoples are you going to include...will be
in your study?
S: Only those persons that were living here physically in the
county last summer, the summer of 1972.
M.C. Grieg, you may speak to this tomorrow night, but some of
us may not be here tomorrow night, but others will substitute
for us maybe. Because double voting is'upermost in the minds
21
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
M.C. ....? $ &Y OF US...uh, what effects...as a person who looks
in on our county...what effects do you think double voting has
had on the culture in the community the like of Indian communities?
S: That's a toughfy...uh you can get in trouble on that one. O.k. as
long as you had your own separate school system, and sort of by
agreement, "X" number of jobs were Indian jobs...uh, it kept you
in the middle...put a ceiling on you, but it was a...in many ways
a pretty happy middle. With the enforced desegregation, not only
of students, but of faculty, coupled with a surplus of public
school teachers...uh, that monopoly in a sense, of jobs, is
seriously threatened. Uh, tenure is a very shaky thing. With,
as a result...and it isn't only in Robeson County, it's all over
the state, and it's in every state that has gone through this
desegregation thing. O.k. so that...that sort of sets the pic-
ture of your...in a sense, the Indian position, the Indian
economic position in the county is in jepordy. Uh, the double
voting issue comes in because it limits and minimizes the
Indian votes in deciding who's going to make the decisions about
who has the jobs. Be these positions based on deciding what
kind of tests do we give people. Do we take a seven foot ruler
and say o.k. everybody who's seven feet tall, they pass, and if
you're under then we'll rank you below it, or whatever the test
may be. The people who are going to decide that test and how to
use it...uh, are the people who are elected in this county....
END SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE
22
LUM 125AB
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
MOORE HALL P.SU.
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
DATE: MARCH 5, 1973
TAPE: ONE
SIDE: TWO
U: individuals, and I'm a
very unique person, not in the sense that I'm great or anything, but
in that I'm my own person you know, and I'm...have my own identity.
But...that is my first question...don't you think norms are misleading?
Two: don't you think that the only way we're ever going to get any-
where, say double voting, and I just feel that a lot of the conclu-
sions aren't very strong...but don't you think we're going to have
to take the summations that you come up with and put them to work,
and the next time we have a seminar you be sitting in the front row,
and me be standing there? You know, reverse the roles? And uh, I know
all you guys are admirable, and idealists probably, but it kind of
offends me that all of us are sitting here you know, and you're standing
there. Somehow, taking your conclusions, don't you think we have to
reverse that role especially in this city and-the county, any of us?
Well I state questions...
S: I would like to see uh...very much, the roles reversed. And I...you
feel, of course still speaking about Baltimore...I would like to see
23
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...studies of the Indian people in Baltimore done by the Indian
center, done by Indian people. And I think they are beginning to. Now
one of the first...you know you can do uh, studies without any back-
ground, you know do it, and then you may come out with information
which may not be very reliable. So right in the beginning there may
have to be help, some...some help given. And I don't know why some
of the Indians who are, uh, are well educated here can't help them
out in Baltimore too, in the Indian Studies Center. And tell them some
of the ways in which studies might be done. But I do agree with you. I
think it would be very important for Indians to really be doing most
of these studies of the Indian people. I am uh...I feel somewhat
guilty about this, and uh...I know...I willLsay-that I do try, and
where ever I can I stay connected with the Indian community, and when
called upon...I try to help out in whatever they want me to help out.
But you make a good point, and I do hope there's more...there're more
Indians who will be involved in doing this rather than people from the
outside coming and saying things. Well I still think that...Mr.
Breakston said...Dr. Breakston said...it is important for outsiders
also to be looking. It's not that we can fully understand as outsiders.
I would never pretend that I fully understand. But I think there's a
certain kind of outsiders view which I try to maintain as truthfully
and objectively as I can. But there's a little bit more, and I do think
the insider's view is very very important, and would be much more
illuminating than my view.
D: Let me just throw one thing in. As an anthropologist, when we look at
24
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...behavior, we find people sort of spread all over the map, and
tending, most of them, to fall in a particular area. Uh, the feeling
that a man is a man. Uh, there may be some homosexuals among the Indians.
Uh, obviously they don't feel this, but most Indians are going to sit
somewhere here in the middle. Uh, so that's the first thing we do. And
then as an anthropologist, the second thing we do, is we go down into
the situation, and we try and behave in terms of those things that we've
seen. And the first thing we find out is that we've made a mistake, and
we say Peck you're a darn fool. And so they straighten us out...if...if
they can. And if they have good feelings toward us. They straighten us
out. So in this kind of a contrast that we try and describe, uh, this
range of behavior, in terms of its central tendencies. Uh, on the other
point, I'd be...I'd be honored to be invited to your seminar.
0: May I say it offends me somewhat to be standing. Uh, I take the
philosophy...never stand when you can sit down, and never sit down when
you can lie down, uh...so I would much rather be sitting down, and I
would much rather be having you hold...talking. But uh, let me say in
fairness to persons who arranged this program, I did not, I'm simply an
invited guest. Uh, this is simply one thing that I have become interested
in...historic development of the Indian people. Uh, one other thing I
studied was occupational education, and I was asked to evaluate oc-
cupational education, in this case for whites, and when the...my research
was over I was invited to Washington, and they made me stand and tell
what I'd found out. And I hope that's what I...what we're doing here.
25
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: We're just...I'm just standing here telling you some of the things I saw.
U: Yeah, and I...I wanted...directed the question to you in a friendly
manner, I didn't mean it as an affront. But I think that's the...this
concept is what's going to be our salvation. When we ask those kind
of questions, and you know, and take your answers and evaluate them
and put them to use. And uh...you know, we've been a frustrated people,
and some of our most brilliant people, you know, guys who are
SJl >-s ^ c 0- q q \rt l ...... We've
got to start asking questions, and we've got to, you know, get away
from this plantation type thing, where if uh, you're a so-called
W-A-S-p...we can't let it...
S: Not entirely --
U: I mean we've got to get away from that idea that we can't ask those
kind of questions you know, in a friendly manner.
S: That's right.
U: We have problems here.
Q: I would like to ask a question that what happens to your study.
Uh, is it just a year or two years of reprieve or enlightenment, or do
you plan to put the information which you have gained hopefully in the
right hands to correct some of the injustices or some of the short-
comings or deficits which you might find? eD2S \J A ,'AA Ae_-
A: For our part, we would certainly hope...the fact that the Federal
Government required that we provide the information back to you, as
well as providing it to the Federal Agency that has control over some
26
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...of the programs so that there can be changes...positive changes
made where there are defects.
B: Well I uh...I feel basically, in Baltimore, that the work is not
correcting some of the inequities in Baltimore needs to be done by
the Indian people, or the Indian center. They must do it, and all I
can feel is that I've made my study available not only to the Indian
center, but have made it available to a lot of people who helped me
in the course of the study...the Indians...gave them copies of it.
And I visit the center and visit my friends and talk with them and
want to be available to them if they need the help. I think that's
one of -the advantages of my situation. That I remained in Baltimore,
it wasn't just a study for one year. I stay there and continue my
contacts with them. I think the Indian people basically have to do
this themselves, and want to do it themselves. The Indian center
doesn't want me to come in and tell them how to do anything at all.
They're interested in my...the findings of my study. But they want
to do it themselves, and I think that's the way it will have to be
done.
C: On mine, mine really involved two phases. The first phase was...as
a starving graduate student...I paid all my own bills, and barely did
that, and so I couldn't help anybody but myself. I got a disertation
out of that, and that's something that I paid for, and it's also
something that you have given to me. And for this there is a debt.
27
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
C: The second part of the study was...there was money in that. That was
part of the National Study of American Indian Education. Uh, and I was
a...one of I think six center directors. And I had I think the highest
porportion of Indian employees of any of the centers. Every single
one of my interviewers was Indian. Uh, they received some training,
not a whole lot, but they received some, and many of them have gone
on to be then skilled interviewers in other studies that came through
here. Uh, the output from this...that study went into a final report
to congress, and to the President. Uh, not an awful lot has come from
it, but the new Indian Education Bill that some of you know about,
that's been passed, but hasn't gotten the funds paid for was influenced
with some of the information from that national study. And on a couple
of key issues it was influenced. And one of them was the way in which
an Indian is defined. Because up until that time, pretty much, when it
came to funding, an Indian was defined as a member of the B.I.A. role.
On the new Indian Education Act, he's defined as any group that the
state recognizes as an Indian is elligible. Now this is a real crucial
shift, and it wouldn't have happened I don't think without the sup-
porting evidence from the National Study of Indian Education. Uh, some
other changes that have happened in the county as a result of that
study. I think there's a new awareness and emphasis on the importance
to you of Indian history. And not only to you, but to everybody else
in the county because they're living in this county too, and they want
to know something about Indians. Uh, this isn't moving perhaps as fast
28
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
C: ...as we would like it to, but it is moving. And so there's some
things going there. I think I also am, and have been a re-
source for people down here. Uh, and would like to be more
of a resource. But I think that best of all, I would like
to be run off...have somebody who is more qualified, who's
Indian and they don't need me.
Q: Was uh, Federal-Indian Policy part of your basis in your study?
I know that historical part comes tomorrow night, but uh, I
was just wondering if that business of people here getting
caught between Federal Indian Policy and the state, and their
reaction to it caused them to, I guess in a lot of cases,
caused somewhat a disappointment in Indian leadership. I think
that's probably more of a key than anything else in my study.
A: See, it usually never came up directly, but was always there.
Uh, and I went through all sorts of flack on the national study
because uh, the Lumbee didn't fit the mold. Uh, without federal
funding, without federal payments, your income was higher than
most Indians. Without federal...B.I.A. schools, your education
level was way above other Indians. Uh, you just didn't behave
like uh a lot of the Indians in the United States should be-
have. Even those in tri-racial situations, you didn't...didn't
fit the pattern. And one of the big differences is, other
Indians in tri-racial situations tend to be...in a tri-racial
29
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...situation with whites, Spanish-American, Indian, they're
on the bottom. And the Lumbee they were well
into the middle, well into the upper-middle, and even when you
look at their income...it was, you know, edging toward the
poverty level. But the behavior was not. They were behaving
like...you know, not...not very wealthy middle class and
upper-middle class. But boy, they had the Protestant Ethic
right down the line. They had the work ethic right down the
line. They had the...the attachment, very strong attachment,
for the church, even when they didn't go. They just looked
really good solid middle class people, and this...this didn't
fit in with most of the studies that exist. And so it-was-a-eonn-
tinual hassle in the study-to-try and fit Lumbee data in to
make sense with other Indian data. So it's in this kind of a
context that...that the hassle took place for me.
Q: I'd be interested in...if each one of you can, in your endeav-
ors, in the county, as you proceeded to study the Indians,
what was the reaction as far as say the whites power structure
as you went about doing your study ...a personal feeling, what
you felt...what they thought you were here doing, and what kind
of cooperation you received from these people? And I'd like to
know the sources if at all possible 2 edd. dealt with.
A: I thought that was good. I don't know if this is what you want
or not, but we did try to solicit the cooperation of every
30
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...group when we came in. And uh...we found the Indians to be
the most cooperative. ---s_ .
B: I don't know what I can make of that one.
Q: cr -'\rt your study.
C: Now we were...to be honest,.,we...we went to...three or four
years ago when we thought about-coming down to Robeson County,
\\ gs, that we'll blast in there and get a lots
of white interviews done...we'll have trouble with the Indians
and the blacks. We'll just have to do the best we can. Well,
we blasted in here and got one hundred percent support from
the Indians, a high amount of support from the blacks, and poor
support from the whites.
D: I'm not sure your request is particularly appropriate to
Baltimore, but I will answer it in a couple of ways anyhow.
Let me say as far as the Indians were concerned, I really got
a very friendly reception. You know, until people got used to
me, and thought perhaps I was a cop, or something, until they
got used to me, uh...un...my university connection really paved
the way, and my grey hair paved the way. Uh, Indians feel uh,
respect for-old-peeple. My grey hair was in no way a hinderance.
Maybe it kept me from some of the bar drinking parties, uh, they
didn't invite me, but otherwise my reception was very good, very
friendly, and there were only a few who I felt didn't trust me
after awhile, and I didn't and I didn't thrust myself too strongly
on them. I will say about some of the outsiders though, and their
31
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...thoughts. You know, there're a lot of, uh, in this area of
Baltimore most of the shopkeepers are not Indian. There are
a few Indians there. Most of them are not Indian. I did talk
with shopkeepers just to get what they knew about, what they
thought about, and a lot of them were amazed that I thought
it worthwhile to study Indians, and there was some problem
with them, and they had some problems with Indians too. But
uh, by and large, I don't really feel they counted very much
as far as my being able to understand the Indians. And I had
made the point in my study that I think it would be very good
if the Indians were willing to take over some of the stores
in this area. Really run some of the businesses there. It -
would make a big difference in the area if the Indians ran
some of the businesses themselves in that area. Now I will
say about authorities in Baltimore. Authorities in Baltimore
are very eager to get information about Indians. They really
are, they know there's a big Indian community there. From time
to time there have been difficulties with Indians. The Indians
uh...when uh, pushed by police, they'll push back, and it gets
to be a problem as far as the person concerned. They were re-
ally...I went to talk to a number of authorities again, just
to look into the question of trouble with the law, and see
32
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...the extent to which some of these officials connected with
the law were to hear about Indians and so on. I really was
surprised at one thing, that while everybody knew about Indians,
they really...they really didn't know many Indians. They really
didn't have much experience with Indians. I can remember a
conversation with the head of the probation department of the
main court in Baltimore, and'he said he knew the Indians very
well, but then he looked up his records as to the number of
Indians who had been referred to him uh, to put on probation
in 1969. Of 1313 cases, I remember the figure, there were
eleven Indians he had all together. That is, not many Indians,
the Indians are well known. The authorities know them very
well, but not that many really get in trouble with the law.
But the uh, administration generally is very interested in -
the Indians. I was amused at the uh...opening meeting, the
inaugural of theslndian Center. The commissioner of police
went to the inaugural of the Indian Center, and a number of
other city officials were there too. So uh, this is what I
can tell you about Baltimore anyway.
E: In my work here in the county, basically I worked with
Indians, and I worked where you still had Indian schools. Uh,
to do that I had to clear and get permission from young
Allen, and he gave it. He gave it in good faith, and did not
in any way inhibit or encumber my study. I think this is an
33
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWERL DANFORD DIAL
E: ...important thing at least for me to remember. Uh, at a later
date I sent some people down to try and get some economic in-
formation from Lumberton, from the county, and you have never
seen so many papers lost. It was just incredible. And so what
I figured out, is that when a study is being done, that the
power structure perceives as not threatening or harming them,
it's pretty cooperative. But if they see or think that it
might harm them, that it might...not just build up the In-
dians...but build up the Indians at the white power structure's
expense, then they're going to resist. And I think this has
been basically the pattern that I have observed. I think cer-
tainly the uh...there have been a lot of you mention the civil
rights appearance that you had last September...uh, tended to
reenforce this as kind of a conclusion. That where it...if it
doesn't matter they're more than willing to cooperate. If it-
'll do some good, but not cost them anything still they'll
cooperate. But where they perceive it as a threat to their
position then the cooperation comes much harder. There pro-
bably are some notable exceptions to this in the county gov-
ernment though. This is...this is...again, one of theseigen-
eralities that I mentioned that's describing that central
part. But there are people os d 6 bo d that are
quite different.
34
SUBJECT; LUMBER FEEDBACK
INTERVItEE ; DAPNFD DIAL
E: I should say that most of my study has been of a historic na-
ture, or has dealt with economic data. Most of this is a mat-
ter of public record, so that actually if I wish go in and
demand to see the titles. Or I could demand to see total as-
sessments. I will say that at the interpersonal level I have
found county officials to be most cooperative. And under-
standably, these are persons who must run for reeelection.
They don't want any flippant careless statement to be repeat-
ed outside the any group. And...and
so uh, I am an outsider to them. You see, there are grave and
serious cleveages among whites. And uh, so uh, sometimes a
sociologist is not exactly a loved person by the power struc-
ture because he represents potentially a threat. Oh, one other
thing I meant. I have never yet started a study with the
Lumbee Indians that I did not have to go through a two or
three hour period, but I guess I could best accredit that to
sermons on why I shouldn'r be doing what I want to do. Uh,
usually quite well thought out and quite justified, but when
that is through if I still want to do it, and if they agree
to do it...boy you've got somebody behind you one-hundred
per cent. This has been a...you know, it just...I mean they're,
they're really behind you, and really going to help you. This
is...I think maybe a characteristic thing down here.
35
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: I was just wanting to ask a question about a uh...group of In-
dians they just cluster you know, like you marked it off down
here? My experience time this is my home, where I was brought
up here. What brings about, what causes the, the Indians to
cluster like that...together you know. Don't you think there's
something which has caused them to cluster like that? The en-
vironment...that we come up in this section? It ought not to
have been like that to start with. This is what I had learned.
Why would I...why would we want to cluster together like that?
Don't you think we was barred...the bars was put up on us that
causes us to have to be like that?
A: Yeah, you're ....
Q: It ought not to have been like that to start with.
A: Well, what you're saying is why...whay have the Indians sort
of stayed in their group?
Q: Yeah, that's the thing.
A: Well, you've had some legal bars on miscegenation, you've had
economic bars...uh, I think you maybe have also had a deep love
for the land. I mean there's...there's a thing...a thing about
being here, and being in the land that's...that's special. Uh,
you might...you know....
36
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: I think that's that's what we're trying to tear down now...the
bars keeping us out...where we can have our privelege and go,
you know. We ought...I'm going to take me a list of what has
been said. I remember I'm from Robeson, this is my hometown.
I remember...I don't know who it was...he cmae from Baltimore,
and he didn't come down to get with the best of our leaders to
get his information. He got some...he got somebody there to
write it that wasn't...you might say he was...he was...one
that laied out on the street somewhere. This is where a lot of
people get their information...from this type of people, then
they begin to write about the Indians you see.
A: Um huh...I remember....
Q: I think...I think you need to watch what's did. He came to me
at Lumberton...this man come from Baltimore, he didn't get
what I call the best of our Indian people. He got what I call,
you know, what I just described. .--.. _---s __
He didn't go to church, but these are the ones that conducted
this information to him. This is not the best of our people.
A: No. But I think as a...as a behavioral scientist, it's impor-
tant to get that described. But if you're going to be honest
about your work...you get the whole range.
Q: Yeah.
37
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: And you try and describe where most people are. And maybe you
sayv..you know, you say those people are here, there's some
over here, and some over there...but most people are here.
This is what we try to do.
Q: All I'll say...now get this, I'm an,Indian. I'm proud of my-
r .self. But if someone calls us like this...about 1964 ,X
right in that area. I worked in Lumberton, I had on a white
shirt, sleeves rolled up, clean pants. This is what we are
living and what we must get rid of. I think all we Indians wa
want is...is...is the...is the power structure to open the way.
Recognize that this...this is...we're moving forward. I don't
know hardly how to direct questions see, but I know...you know,
how to put it...put it across.
A: Yeah.
Q: Uh, I had...see this is some of the fhkn -s we Indians in this
area has had to'T, and it's kept us poor. That's why we are
poor. But we want the power machine to open up to us...let us
have the same opportunity the white race has. I want to walk
down the street with you just like another man. But we haven't
had that privilege. I had a seat up there at Lumberton about
1964. I had a seat on this stool up there at the counter. I
co\t for a ice cream sanaiAr. A young girl, she acted like
she didn't hear me. I'm just telling you what we had to come
38
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: ...up...I'm...I'm...I told myself, maybe I'm not on top of
-_a \et-&-Skp but I don't think I'm down at the
bottom. So this is some of the things we have had to come up
to. I had a seat up there and I called for a ice cream saft
NgW A young white girl she acted like she didn't hear me.
Another white man sat down on this stool aside of me and he
called for a Coke. She waited on him. I said, "Lady, I called
for a ice cream Siwief" And she-said, You have to get down
and come around here." I said, "What do you mean by getting
down there?" She said, We don't serve Indians across the
counter here, get out of here." I said, "Well if my money is
not welcome here...it's not welcome around there." I thought
it was in her you know...just a young girl. I said, "Where's
your ma "' She said, "You would like to speak to him?"
And I said I would. Two of them come out you know. And I shook
their hands, told them who I was, they were mighty surprised.
I said, "You've got a nice business, and so forth." I said, "I
had a seat, sat down, I called for a ice cream saaiwh+f, and
I was refused to be served." And so I told them...and the two
men came in, and I said to them right to their face. And so
they stood and listened. I said, "What makes me feel so bad,
we Indians always open the door for the whites here, but when
we come to a certain place then the bars are put up acrosss"
39
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: They stood there looking at me. And I spoke to them, and I
said, "Look here you all...If there's anything God dislikes
any worse than this, the race issue, I don't know what it is."
And I said, "I hope to see the day come that it'll be whites
A\ .i \tat.r the other, and I think it's
about time too." They told me...I said, "Mr. Jennings, I know
how he feels." I says...said, "We are sent here because we op-
erate the business," you see. We have come up, that's...that's
what's kept us V5 A like that ___.
A: Yeah.
Q: Now what we need -jD-t- ,.,_o A I don't
know nr J a b .. We need some repre-
sentation. Like .e SAj this double vote, we
need to ____ we don't need to keep on talking
...we're wanting to do away with this Indian and white man, and
black man issue. Let's work together, add open up the way where
we can open the opportunity, the manpower...let's recognize
people. Now if you're going to keep on A\ bo the
Indians...I'm going...I'm going to get out there and tell the
people...Let's have our Indian schools, and let the white man
get to his place, and the black people get to their place. And
if this is what we want alright. If we're going to divide our
selves c.> rvto- and our culture, let's work
40
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: ...together. I think this is what we need to do. I think we
knows our back history. I can tell you a lot. I went to school,
I had seven years of grade school. And it burns me when you
begin to talk about how the poor Indians have been treated...
that's why we arepoor. And I don't know how to say this, just
like I'm a saying it tonight. I know what the teachers told me
when I was a little boy...how they had to get their education.
Yes that's what's got us poor. I'm ashamed of it, but a lot
of times the white people don't know what we're come to here.
Now I made a big sermon, and I hope and trust that there are
...we'll tear down the bars yonder...where we can learn to work
together...let's move out, the world is rich. The money is there.
Let me have the same opportunity you have got.
A: Tomorrow...
Q: Thank you for this privilege. I just wanted to tell you some-
how ~ k.
A: .r_l Avjp3 share4hat's on your heart '\\\A \ T Tomorrow
is when we get the community organization and the mer active
part of it. And tomor...I don't want to feed on tomorrow because
the people who are going to be here tomorrow, are going to deal
with this kind of thing. So I'll look for you tomorrow...and
SCA S rl 4. get the answers.
Q: Uh, you said your study was uh, predominantly Indian. Have you
also made a study of, or has anyone made a study of how...how
41
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: ...well Indian students do in the city system contrasted to
the town system, followed by county. In the county system you
see basically a Indian teachers, and predominantly Indian
student pop L I was wondering
what this would do to the way an Indian feels 9Voc "g n Si^
contrasted with city system, where
maybe he is a minority in the white versus black
U: In the stuff we did...
A: In the stuff I did, the city system was Baltimore, uh, the
young children were in predominantly black schools. For the
junior high and senior high were in uh, integrated schools
that we had a heavy black J A._ The Indian
children were a very very small minority in the city school
systems. Uh...seems not to perform much better or much worse
than anyone else, but they were lousy schools. They were urban
school systems with high dropout rates. Uh, one of the major
complaints was that the kids weren't even aloud to take their
books home. Uh, but they...there weren't enough of them in
Baltimore for us to get a very good idea at that time of just
what was going on. Uh, one thing I do remember was that the
girls seemed to be more prone to violence than the boys. Girls
seemed to be the ones that were carrying a chip on their shoulder
that were quicker to fight in school than the boys were. Why, I
42
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
Q: Would you know of any field studies done?
A: No, I don't think any studies have made of Indians in the...in
the n6e-county system. I think you're right...it probably
should be done.
Q: Uh, just one question when you made your study...when you came
in j-u. you were given a permit. I just won-
dered if this was by Indians or by non-Indians that you were
discouraged to do this thing?
A: sev Saw< B4altimore.
Q: Ic"l ^(4w /rCk p/,/n Ca,4c-k ALt-C rAI44iS /J7.&S 4V
A: Oh boy UJh, I looked to the oldest people...many of them have
a very painful past to remember. And it's hard to say we're here
now today. This is the hard thing. Uh...the segregation...this
is what it was...is a.funny thing because it lives in your mem-
ory. You know, it really does. Uh...and for many...many of te
people in Robeson county this is going to be a part of their
life..It's going to be a part of their memory for as long as
they live. For the youngsters...uh, and I found a difference
between Pembroke...the Pembroke area and Magnolia, and the
Lumberton area. For the Lumberton area, the biggest problem is
that road that goes north. They see the trucks going down it
and they hear those tires sing. And there's that sector gse
to leave. Uh, in Pembroke the biggest adjustment problem is
finding out can they fit in to the society here. Are they
going to fit in and feel comfortable, or are they going to
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...have to leave. When they leave, if they're bright, they're
well educated...if they go into the bigger world, not just
the white world, but the bigger world...then they really
have some problems. Uh, your female, twenty-seven or twenty-
eight...have a masters or a PhD, and no husband... .aa-you're-
Indian...you've got a real problem because there aren't un-
married Indian males back home with the same kind of education
the same kind of background. Uh, and characteristic with Indians
Vo...who administer the...who...bureaucracy, the establishment,
the...uh, jobs that are bigger than just Pembroke...are caught
in a bind. They're caught in an cultural crunch. Because in-
side the feelings are Indian, the responses, their...you know,
in their trust that they're Indian. But they have to...in order
to do their job they have to stop being Indian and thinking
Indian...to think bureaucrat. Or think uh...sales manager.
They have to...they get into a funny kind of climate. And this
is one reason why in--Baltimore...the Indians come in, their
economic position raises up very fast, very well, very
solid, and then they hit a spot. And in order to go beyond
that spot they have to stop being Indian...and most of them
can't do that.
44
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
B: I'd like to speak to that just a minute if I may Mr. Peck.
Seems to me like the questions have _graded social
adjustments the Indian has to make. It seems to me that one
of the biggest that I've observed has been to accept himself
and to adjust himself to being Indian first. Once you get over
that hurdle you don't have to think sales manager, and manag-
erial and whatever else. You can think just as any other per-
son then...once you get adjusted to yourself as being Indian.
And not something closer to being white or something near to
being black...that you are an entity and that entity happens
to be Indian.
C: I uh...I think you're right. It is...speaking of Baltimore,
---------because I think it is a uh,
the major problem...identity. And that's why I, *
when I began talking ...I choose to talk about identity
Q- / gAy '4 A4/ o'so I might add something else
about Baltimore as a major problem. The city is a hard place
to raise kids, and one of the reasons...people say I wish I
could come back home and live in Robeson County...is that it
is hard to bring up kids. People who don't make much money,
and the Indians, while they're far from the bottom of the
ladder, still don't make much money. They can't live in really
45;
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
C: ...good areas to live. There are nice areas, if you move to
the suburbs around Baltimore. Jf4- i Cos y -oc_,>
for living. So it's just hard to raise kids in the city. It's
not an easy life for them. I suppose they do have good jobs,
or feel they have good jobs...or a lot more would be coming
home than do come home. There'still is a stable community in
Baltimore. But any time you talk to them...the answer that
anybody would give to you...it's just hard to bring up kids
in a city like that...and I agree with them. It is hard to
bring up kids in a city like Baltimore.
M.C. It's after ten o'clock this is a lot later than I thought
we were going to go, so if we could have just two more quest-
ions...or one more. Yeah?
Q: v______
?
A: That's not just an Indian problem that's done in every job in
the United States.
Q: But another thing is that uh
work j$ j go to work ------and if they
go to school they go to school...they just...they come home
on the weekends
A: Well, that's the thing I say, when you're bored you drive up
46
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...and do&h the road, and when you're real bored, you raise
cain.
Q:
?
A: One of these days, one of the Indians around here is going to
find out about those automated motion picture houses. Get one
of them sixteen milimeters, and just put up the building and
buy the machine, and it sort of runs itself. And somebody is
going to buy the lot next to the shopping center and put up
a movie, and that'll help a lot. Uh, but you're right, and
it's a problem...and Mike Clark, who many of you know, did
a study on recreation down here, and there isn't anything to
do. Uh, you can go to church, and you can drive up and down
the road...go to work...I mean, you know....
M.C. With this one, I think I would like to wind it up and say
enough for tonight. Get your quesitons ready for tomorrow
night, and we'll hope to see you all...and we'll have ei- cr
questions I'm sure.
END TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO
41
LUM 125AB
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
MOORE HALL
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
DATE: MARCH 5, 1973
TAPE: TWO
SIDE: ONE
A: You're dealing more with the .c-.& orientation, more with,
uh, well last night toward the end, I think a really important
question was raised that we didn't answer. And that was the
question of...what can be done about opening up the power
structure, opening up the way things are done in the county
to perhaps give the Indians more voice...give the Indians a
little bit better break, give the Indians perhaps more impor-
tantly, some of things that they feel they want...rather than
the things that they're told they ought to have. Uh, and tonight
I think it's going to be directed very specifically towards
answering in a way...that kind of question. I don't think we
can give you a magic pill, or give you a magi_ button or any-
thing like that, but I think as a group as a group we can
make some recommendations for somethings that you can do that
might work. Uh, the first speaker is going to be Professor
Adolf Dial, who all of you know. He's going to cover a little
4%
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...bit about history, some of the significant dates in terms
of the Indians, some of the significant lives thht have shaped
the way Indians are in North Carolina. And so it brings...it
is a historical picture to bring us up to the present. Follow-
ing him, Joel Owl, who many of you know, is going to give you
some of his thoughts about the Pan-Indian Movement. I under-
stand he's got some slides also of the Lumbee Homecoming, and
of some of the other kinds of Indian celebrations that you've
participated in and been to. And winding up our speakers to-
night is going to be Bob Gregory, who is going to talk speci-
fically to community organization, and perhaps some of the
things that you can do to begin to change things a little bit.
George Stout is going to be the reactor...the summarizer for
tonight. George has been...George is with Bureau of Indian
Affairs, he's Creek and Seminole, and I met him before he got
to the big time. And he is, I think, one of the most concerned
people I know in terms of changing the way Indians have been
treated, and changing the position that Indians have held to
this night, in American society. Again we are going to break
after the third speaker, and have a quick cup of coffee, a
few cookies, and then come back, George will sort of wrap
things up, and we'll go into a general discussion session as
we did last night. Incidently, I...in looking through the
49
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
A: ...notes that weie taken, my wife took very good notes last
night, I was impressed with the kinds of questions that were
coming out, and the kinds of concern that were behind the
questions. This has been an important experience for me, to
come back down, and to open up, and to get the discussion
back from you. To get really, you know, in a sense this is
our feedback to you, but we're really getting some feedback
from you. And come the next go around of research, or one,
one of your gentleman tells me-maybe the next go around of
research, he should be the project director, and I should
be working for him...and maybe that's right. Maybe that can
happen. O.k. I think I'll start off then handing it over to
Professor Dial...Adolph.
D: Thank you Dr. Peck. I'll be horse if I don't close this
door before I finish...can't stand the draft. Then you can
open it when I It.& C 1 .4 Gregory
said no more than twenty minutes...o.k. Greg. I believe one
of the problems that's been facing the Lumbee Indians over the
many years, is this problem of identity. This problem of a
name. And in dealing with some of the legislation tonight, I
shall mention several bills which dealt with this business of
a name for the Lumbee Indians...or for the Indians of Robeson
County...Robeson and adjoining counties if you please. What
'5<
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...is an Indian anyway? vi r> Pulitzer
Prize winner, who wrote, - najdl c ^ a,
said at the Tenth Convocation two years ago, sponsored by the
American Indian Historical Society, with headquarters at
1451 /,> Ave., San Francisco..."An American
Indian is-an-idea, it's what one believes himself to be." And
we could say, "What does an Indian look like?" And 3 ubs a
Lee says, "I have often heard the phrase, that he doesn't look
Indian. I've often wondered what an Indian is supposed to
look like. To an outsider he probably looks like the Holly-
wood b c but how many people really know. I've met
people from all tribes. Some look oriental, some have blond
hair and blue eyes, some dark eyes, and some straight black
hair. To me they're all Indians. Not because of their physical
make-up, or because they have a roll stating that they are
Indians, but because he is interested in what happens to his
people. He suffers whenever his people suffer. He enjoys him-
self when he is around his people. And Indian looks like an
Indian not from the outside, but from the inside where it re-
ally counts. I think we have enough discrimination from the
outside...why practice it among ourselves. An Indian is an
Indian no matter what he ieBs like. The problem is not his,
but rather the problem of the person who makes the statement
50
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...that he doesn't look Indian. It makes no difference what
he looks like as long as our hearts and feelings look In-
dian." I like that...I like that very much. If you remember
that tonight, and you don't get anything else out of this
session, I think it will be worth your time here. Let us
deal with some of the historical dates, and let me say that
I am not speaking to scholars, I'm speaking more to the lay-
men at this point. I'm not speaking to scholars, I'm speak-
ing to laymen. And if you know everything I say, why just
take it easy for awhile until the next speaker comes along.
I'd like to begin with 1587 because of John White's lost col-
ony. All of you are familiar with the three early English
voyage...and the third, John White's Lost Colony, which of
course the colony was lost. You know, when he left in 1587,
and returned in 1590 he did not find the colony. Keep in mind
that I only have a few minutes. So he was going to Croatan
the next day, he and the captain, but the captain, something
happened to the ship, and he advised him against it, and they
didn't make the trip to Croatan. Maybe the lost colony was
there. Well, Croatan Indians as a tribe didn't inhabit Croatan
Island...they were Hatterus Indians. And perhaps when Hamilton
McMillan put his bill through in 1885 designating Indians here
52,
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...as Croatan Indians...if he had come up with Hatterus Indians
he would have saved a lot of legislation, and a lot of time
over the many many years. Now I'm not suggesting another change
at this point...I want to make that clear. The sixteen hundreds
is pretty much a blank century. Very little happened as far
as recorded history goes. Uh, we have an account of Morgan Jones
but we can't rely on what he said too much. So it's pretty much
a blank period, but maybe the people were migrating in this
direction from Roanoke. 1709...all of you know that's the first
North Carolina historian John Lawson, speaking of the Hatterus
Indians. Talk about these people who speak in the book who have
blue eyes and blond hair, or who talk in the book, and speak
the English language. Or maybe he was talking about some of
their people. And only hit on highlights agd -l1iA _.
In 1754, Governor Dinwitty of Virginia wrote to Governor Dodd,
and he asked for the trip of the Indians in North Carolina.
And Governor Dodd replied, "There's a lawless...there's a law-
less group." And he didn't say a lawless group of Indians,
but there's a lawless group of people we'll say, living on
Drowning Creek, which is the Lumbee River, in this area...who
have taken their land without Quint Rent and /---
once a day. We find by 1775 to 1781, the date of the American
.. .. .
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...Revolution that our people fought in the American Revolut-
ion without a doubt. The same goes for the War of 1812. But
the tragic time came to our people in 1835. From 1835 to 1885
was fifty years...it was a dark age. It was fifty years of
uh, you know, a real struggle. You think we have a struggle
now because of the double vote over there in Raleigh, and
some of the guys pass the buck you know. It was a...it was a
time when we were really fighting for our rights. Because the
Constitution of North Carolina was revised in 1835...which
disfranchised the black man. We were not recognized at that
time by the United States Government as some other Indian tribes.
We were not white, we were not black...therefore we were caught
up in a situation as we sometimes say, "Between the devil and
the deep blue sea." Now something that you...most of you have-
n't heard about. There were some supreme court decisions,
state supreme court descissions after 1835. Just happened to
run on these in my research. One was the uh...Charles Oxendine
versus the State of North Carolina, 1837, and Oxendine was
charged with assault and battery. And he pleaded guilty. And
the court ordered him hired out as a "free person of color."
See, from '35 to 1885 we were known as free persons of color.
Then he appealed to the supreme court, and Judge William Jackson,
51
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...and his penmanship is terrible, he prohibited Oxendine from
carrying this...see, Jackson was Catholic, I think he had an
opened mind on the issue, and he didn't want to make a
constitutional decision. And I think he was really, you know,
I really don't know what he had in mind. There was another
case, Noel,.N-o-e-l, Locklear against the State of North
Carolina, 1853...which involved carrying a weapon. And he was
charged with carrying a weapon in violation of the act of
1840. He was a...he was tried, and I think convicted, the best
I could make out. Defendants with...with this man were Troy
Reed, and some other Reed. Well, I thought I would mention there
was another case...John Locklear, I don't have the details on
it, and that happened right about this time. In 1864, well let's
say that the war.. .you know South Carolina seceded from the
Union in 1860, and of course secession followed, and by 1864
the war was almost over. And this was the beginning of the
Lowry Boys, 1864. You know the story of some escaped prisoners
from Florence who came into the area, and perhaps they were
housed near the Lowry...the mother of Henry Barry Lowry speaks
of keeping two or three on occasion. But to move on, we know
this period during the Lowry War, that there were several
causes...I think it goes back to 1835...it goes back to the
54f
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...fact that Allen Lowry, the immediate cause. You know Allen
Lowry and-his son William, Henry Barry Lowry's father and
brother being shot. But anyway, perhaps there was a need for
this war at this time. Lumbee Indians today call their number
one hero Henry Barry Lowry...over the ages. I want to make
that plain to you. My mother was a very good Christian Methodist,
and you know she thinks Henry Barry Lowry was a great man. He
was. This is the way we think about-Henry Barry Lowry, he was
a great man. We decorate people who go to Vietnam, or we build
great statues showing raising the flag on Iwo Jima. You know,
and we do a whole lot of things...right? You're supposed to
say right. I'm not going to say anything about the Lowry Gang
because that would take weeks. Since I'm only hitting high
lights of dates...in 1885 the North Carolina Legislature pass-
ed a law designating the Indians of Robeson County as Croatans,
and all of us are familiar with this. Well this did a lot for
us. The minutes of the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association show
in 1881...they met in 1880, they kept no meetings...no minutes,
but in 1881 they met. And the minutes of the Burnt Swamp Bap-
tist Association...called their organization the Burnt Swamp
Baptist Association of the mixed race. They had no name. It
was a struggle. And I want to find out...during the entire
56
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...struggle there were those who would have tried to make the
Indians black, and put them down low, and kept them there.
I'm not saying all white people would have done it...no, but
there were some who would have. In '87 was the beginning of
Pembroke State University...Croatan Normal School. And it first
had course rates hanging under the door $- uau We -j. o> -4
My grandfather inscribed it there. Now the Legislation in 1885
provided for public schools, let me say that. Now Hamilton
McMillan, representative from Red Springs, and I understand
in this community at one time we had a Hamilton McMillan Day
for awhile. I was told this by Judge Early It
had been told...his parents told him about .l AiUm And
the Indian people thought well of Hamilton McMillan, and I
think he did a...deserves a building on the Pembroke State
University campus, and I hope the board of Trustees will get
around to it some time. Hamilton McMillan was a great friend
to the Indian people. I feel that way and I might as well speak
it. Of course the name Croatan was based on the lost colony
theory that I think yaBfe heard.But the name didn't work out
too well because the white people of the area caused the
Indian people of the area to despise.,..the name Croatan, so
when it was used in such a derogatory manner, and perhaps so
5V
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...often, the Indians soon said let's change this name. And
I notice that the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association dropped
after a few years, they dropped the name Croatan...they used
it the first time there I told you...the uh... s-
chA- 'frcz then they dropped Croatan. But by 1911 we were
knocking on legislative halls again. Just as we were knocking
today, but for different purpose, they didn't make er o
,_ ___ this meeting. I'd like to wish you well who
went...I'm with you. I'm against double voting. Not to lose
my trend of thought. But in 1911, we were designated as Indians
of Robeson County. And of course the name of the Institution
had to change. But we only kept that name for two years. In
1913 you know people said,"Well golly...Indians of a county...
why we're something more than that. Let's have a name." In
1913...Cherokee Indians of Robeson County. Well the Cherokee
Indians of western North Carolina never did like this move.
And rightfully so. Now I'm not saying there's not some
Cherokee blood in this area. We have some Cherokee blood in
the area. But we had the new bill, 1913, Cherokee Indians of
Robeson County. Do-you remember-oId Cherokee Normal School
/- ^ ? Is that what it was called, Cherokee
Normal School?
51
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
U: That's right.
D: Then we went up to Pembroke State College for a year, and
then it was Pembroke State College, and then Pembroke State
University. Another something ip...another important some-
thing happened the same year, 1913. This most of you don't
know about. You know it happened, but you didn't know when
it happened. And that...to...for the protection of the In-
dian...of the public schools of Robeson County. And the
first committee...the legislature set up J.E. Woodall, H.T.
Lowry, O.H. Lowry, and W.B. Welby. Now this committee had
the power to keep the schools clear, so to speak, of people
of Indian blood...they'd have to trace their ancestors to
Robeson County. Not even an Indian from Oklahoma could at-
tend the institution at that time. Now you look back today,
and you say, "Well how stupid!" But never the less, I'm tel-
ling you the way it was. And if something happened to one
of the committeemenhere... they had the power to name his
successor. But the Robeson County Board of Education...I
didn't know that until this week...they could veto their
action. But I don't think they ever did. They left it to
them. 1914 M. McPhearson came here from the Dep-
artment of Interior as a special agent. And...my time is
51
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: ...almost up...came here as a special agent from the Dep-
artment of Interior, and he did a wonderful job with his
study, M McPhearson...1914. I might say that
uh...later on in the decade, World War II did something.
It gave our boys a chance to go away. And they didn't know
very much, they hadn't been any place. And the first
seargent down at Camp Jackson, he called the role, and
he said, "OXENDINE, LOCKLEAR..." we'll say John Locklear,
and this actually happened...and Locklear says, "Seargent
you've called my name backwards." And the seargent says,
"We'll have no more damn wisecracks out of you." But before
...I mean by the time the basic training was over, the
captain stepped out and he said, "I'd rather have men like
Oxendine, brother Locklear5and so forth, and there was
another Dial in there-. "I'd rather have these men...I'd ra-
ther go overseas with these men, than a whole damn company
of you white men." They made number one soldiers, and don't
you forget it. One of them returned later and the word, you
know, was out that he was dead, and they backed up the wa-
gon at Red Banks waiting for the corpse, and out walked
Abner Locklear. And we said, "Why Abner, we thought you
were dead." He says, "I'm mighty sorry you got disappointed,,
6d
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: The 1930s saw more action for recognition and a name than
any other time in the history of our race. And the boys
deserve a lot of recognition for their hard work. You
know...on the they laid the
ground work for Lumbee I think...to a great degree. because
Lumbee, Santee, Wateree, Teepe, psuedo names...you know,
Lumbee, Teedee, Congoree, Santee, all of these were ee?
Hamilton McMillan says that the old Indians call Lumbee
River Lumbee River. Only he says Lumber River Lumbee River.
All of you now need to call it Lumbee River. If the legis-
lature won't change the name change it yourself. I never
refer to it as Lumber River...I say Lumbee River. I'm going
swimming this summer in Lumbee River. And she's a fine river,
the poet says, and speaking of names in 1953, of course the
state legislature recognized the Indians as Lumbee Indians.
And in 1956 we had our first congressional approval signed
by the President...as Lumbee Indians. Now I'm not saying
there's not Tuscarora blood here. There is Tuscarora blood
in Robeson County without a doubt. And those who choose to
be of the Tuscarora tribe have faith to feel that way. And
don't rule it out because that could take time and it's
still true. What I'm saying is true.
60
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: McNeil, North Carolina's great poet says
about the river, "And subject to change..." And you know
we're...our names have been changing...and he wrote in 1905,
"As subject to change as peas and as any girl that goes.
And no human angel ever possessed more variable hues and
tints and shadows in her misty eyes...than this unconscious
flirt...where the reflection of flags and reeds and rushing
ripples below her banks, and the yellow of the gravel bot-
tom in shallow places darken gradually to the black depths."
And he goes on and he has a lot to say. And on down here I
notice..."that her playmates know that she is as reckless
as her name...as a rose is. She is just as wild, wondering
about in her solemn swamps as she was when the Indians cal-
led her Lumbee." And he ends with a last sentence..."Come
summer, I'll throw myself on her breast again and feel her
cool soft arms around me." 1905. She's a beautiful river.
Now I'm sorry I didn't have more time to deal with a lot of
things, but my time is up. But we could have dealt all
night with Henry Barry Lowry. But I'll quote a little
poem I wrote on Henry Barry Lowry, and I want you to re-
member it because it tells something.
62
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
D: "Henry Barry Lowry, where are you sleeping in an unknown
grave? Does the water flow through your bones..."
Correction on the tape huh?
"Henry Barry Lowry, where are you sleeping in an unknown
grave? Does the grass grow over your breast, or do waters
flow through your bones? That will confuse mankind until
the end of time. You are the hero of a people...keep your
secrets. That is part of your greatness.
A: Our next person is Bill Owl, it's going to take him a minute
to set up.
0: So that's what I've been doing. Three or four years ago in
Fayetteville, and most recently in Raleigh. I'm using the
drug scene in Raleigh as a way of getting asked quesitons
in my communtiy, and trying to bring about some changes that
I hope are good for many people. I don't know if it really
works that way or not. Through the years...the past five
years I've kind of evolved a chalk board talk about under-
standing the community, as I understand it, and I'm going
to draw a bunch of pictures on the chalk board. To make them
a little bit more Indian I thought that I might have such
things as arrows, and a medicine wheel, and a teepee. But
68
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...I'll be using some pictures like that all the way through
and I'll probably have some different names for them as I go
along. The way I got started in this was through something
called systems theory, and systems sounds complicated...it's
really a very simple kind of thing. There are elements. Ele-
ments can be any thing you want to call elements. Which
sometimes get linked together through exchanges. For example,
people talking together. And sometimes the exchange is
___ -__ enough that there may be a eventually
a boundary that differentiates what's in and what's outside.
And that really complicates the quest of the identity...
question...when you've got a system, you've got a non-system
or an environment outside of it. But there may be elements
still wandering around out there. There may also be things
like feedback, or information from the environment that goes
into the system. There may be directionality, or the thing
may arraine itself so that it has some kind of purpose and
values and things like that. Well that's the whole notion
of systems theory. Systems theory can be applied to a lot
of things. I use it to try to understand my community. In
thinking of a community I look first and notice there are
6
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...some people who in a sense constitute elements. And I
think way back in history of some of our communities we
had people who were fairly isolated, sometimes on the fron-
tier, or some times in isolated bands, or groups of people.
After a period of time numbers increased and people began
to settle down. There were more exchanges. And rather
than be isolated there were more and more groupings. These
groupings really formed small towns for example. I like to
think of that as small town America...with an identifiable
community with the people mostly linked together with some
patterns of exchanges for example, some people might be a
business man, or a doctor, or lawyer, housewife, farmer, so
forth. Whereas maybe in-an earlier time people were more
self-subsistant. They would have...they had less dependence
on others occupationally or otherwise. Well this lasted for
awhile and really now we've got very complex communities
with just dozens and dozens of groups. And we have people
who also act as consultants and travel around from place to
place in the thing too. It's a lot more complicated than in
the small town kind of thing. Where you've got both the
small groups, and you've also got people who are constant-
ly moving about. Well if we think of this, and maybe began
65
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...then to add another dimension. Who makes decisions, and
who controls what other people do...we began to find that
these people were self-subsistant...took care of their
ownselves, made decisions for themselves. Their decisions
usually did not affect other people very much if they
weren't linked together. So I could of kind of diagram
that as a kind&of system of-equality. I don't know if that
ever really existed in absolute terms, but maybe there's
a tendency toward that. In a small town, notice that some
individuals have more exchanges going for them than others,
and that means their decisions sometimes count for more,
they're very often the leaders. And some are kind of left
out, and they don't...their decisions don't count for as
much. So you kind of have some leaders up at the top of
a teepee here, and some people scattered through the mid-
dle, and some people at the bottom. And the linkages are
still very much there, so that those leaders, and follow-
ers in between...I could draw a lot more linkages there,
but I think we got the the picture. In a larger community....
END SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO
66
LUM 125AB
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
MOORE HALL
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
DATE: MARCH 5, 1973
TAPE: TWO
SIDE: TWO
0: ...And I think my community of Raleigh, in 1900, there were
maybe twenty-thousand people there, twenty-five-thousand,
but today there are something like two-hundred-and-twenty-
thousand. So the size of the thing has increased very dra-
matically. Also, with that increase in size, let's go back
to leaders, go back to powers. Sometimes we have class
lines forming where we're kind of held in place. People
are upwardly mobile for the most part. They try to accom-
plish certain values, goals, directions...good things.
And really, the energy of the people gets directed toward
those things...the leaders are there first, and the follow-
ers try to get there. Same thing here, there's the people
usually trying to be upwardly mobile, trying to work hard,
get a better job; work hard, get a better education for
kids; work hard in school, get better grades...able to do
a little bit better in the future. They've had a lot of
future orientation, and lots of attempts to better our
position, and move upward. The community I think has
61
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...changed, the ones I've worked in, Fayetville and Raleigh,
in that, two years back, I think the...the difference was
lots. For example: if you were able to.that far, you moved
a great distance. You did a lot better. And now, if you
move that far, you!ve:still maybe moved an equal distance,
but the scene got so much bigger that I wonder sometimes
if it does...suddenly it doesn't mean very much to be up-
wardly mobile. And I think sometimes the competition gets
a little bit rougher. Also, the distance from the bottom,
in a small community, even if you're hurting...if you're
struggling at the very bottom of things, you have low in-
come, broken family, poor housing, on and on and on...you
still have access to those people who make decisions. It
may take several steps to get up there, but your voice
can be heard in your community, and you can influence the
decisions that are made...hopefully. But then when-we-get
over here.,-and we are herding down there, and you go to
somebody who goes to somebody who goes to somebody, and
you try to get your voice heard by those who make the
decisions...and the communication pattern breaks down.
So what happens is, if you're down here, your voice never
gets heard by those who are making the decisions that
61
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...affect you. Some of the kinds of things I see happening
in the communities I've worked with...here's the...o.k.
community here...this makes sense by the way. Leaders at
the top, followers at the bottom...o.k. I see some heads
nodding...the poor are generally caught down here. The
poor is here at thecottom. You've also probably got some
kind of prejudice from up here working, pushing you even
down further. My own work has been in the, since the
last two years, has been in the area of drug addiction,
and I find the people who turn...well who are sometimes
caught in an impossible position sometimes turn to heavy
alcohol use, heroin use, sometimes people who are caught
struggling, trying to climb the ladders here, you know,
kind of like having to...to work hard all day, come home
at night, you're so tense, and been through so much
stress at working at a o.k. job, but not the greatest job
that you really want. By the time you come home you're so
tired, drained, it's all you can do to open a can of beer,
sit there and try to relax...and sit yourself back down
and take some tranquilizers to manage that stress. Of
course the next morning you've got to go to work...you
6V
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...have to have a whole lot of coffee to get you started to
be able to work hard, climb the ladder, get the job done
for the day. And people use the "ups" and "downs" or
amphetamines and "barbs" in the...in the same kind of way.
Mood regulators are useful there when you've got to work
at a difficult job, and when you've got to be able to go
to sleep at night because you're so upset with the way
things are going. Another thing I see in the communities
are...increasingly throughout the community, pep le are
questioning these values, the goals, the directions, the
purposes that we've had. Especially when on a national
level we run into some things where we aren't really sure
those directions that we're going in...maybe those direc-
tions aren't right. I think a lot of us have had questions
about how we...the Vietnam war, about cutting back poverty
programs...about lots of things, so increasingly I think
we question our destiny...our direction that we're setting.
Another kind of thing that I think happens here, is that
very often our communities are split, so that some of us
may live in one place, and we don't communicate with our
neighbors. Sometimes we're split by...I don't know...not
only geographic area, but by the different kinds of
TV
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...occupational groups we have in a community. So that we,
we never look this way, and we never look this way. We're
too busy trying to climb the ladder up this way, and we
lose sight of our neighbors, or our...other people who
could be our friends who may have a different discipline,
different role in their community. They get hostility in-
stead...they compete with them, and...in our climb upward.
Another thing I see happening very much, is that these
barriers sometimes change in how rigid they are. But I
think some of the recent research that I've seen indicates
that a lot of the barriers are pretty solid. That there
are lots of subtle barriers, there are lots of pretty open
barriers. But I think in the last few days...I'm...I'm
very convinced there are lots of barriers if you're anazi--
lidian, I tMink there are lot& of barlIertif you're black
based on skin color. There're economic barriers, social
barriers, political barriers, education, on and on and on.
Well, it's...that's the way a community is set up these
days, and I'm not totally sure that this is the way it is,
but increasingly I see that that kind of description fits
the communities I know. if that's the case what can we do?
70
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...Are there some things we can do in our communities so that
people down here have a greater say in decision making,
so that when these people allocate resources, and they
make those decisions in good things that happen...so that
these people are heard and have a chance to get those
things. So that maybe sometimes these barriers aren't so
rigid. So that maybe these lines here that keep us apart
from each other...is there some way to reduce that. This
is the kind of thing that I've concerned myself about ,
with Raleigh and Fayetville too. Some of the strategies
pertained, and I'm going to run through a whole bunch of
them because I think they're important. One of the things
that I used to think could happen, would be that to just
get the word to these people, and they could make some
changes happen. We've just got a problem, and it'll...it'll
all turn right. Well, we tried that...it didn't work.
These people are held in place, both by the push from up
here...these people are busy climbing up there, and they-
are held in place because of that. But also, if you've
dealt with some of the elites, they're linked in with ot-
her elites and other places, so that if you're going to
change one, you've got to change a great many. Community
7%.
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...leadership in many places, the leaders go around from city
to city. They're kind of locked in there because of maybe
state or federal kinds of things as well, so they can't
really change very much. Well, that didn't work too well.
Another kind of thing, I've had some academic training in
how to rehabilitate individuals, and I set out to do
things like that. Find somebody who was hurting, evaluate
them, get them some special training, fix them up, get them
up here where everything is good. And great, he's happy,
making a productive living, he's not poor anymore...fine,
works great for an individual. But there's a slight prob-
lem in that too, in that you can keep bringing individuals
up here, but other individuals get pushed down here I
think at the same time. The structure stays the same, and
you end up with many poor people, many hurting people, and
the same kind of situation all over again. It's important
to the individual, but somehow it doesn't really bring
about the like results for the whole community. Another
kind of strategy is to begin organizing. And I know there
are many here who organized at one time or another...again,
where people are hurting. And grassroots organizing...you
73
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...get together a group of people who are caught here, build
an organization, and start trying to move the whole thing up
the ladder. Or another kind of thing, you begin-to move out-
side. You've got two...two possible directions here. And if
you've got a really together group of people, and you're re-
ally te n with it you might be able to move some distance,
but as we talked, I think, yesterday, once these people begin
to notice what's going on here they get pretty threatened.
And the first thing you know, they start monitoring what's go-
ing on, and then set up a kind of blockade there, and start
coming down heavy as a threat recoil cycle. As soon as there's
a threat they start recoiling against it. So that doesn't work
too well either. Well, we've tried all those kinds of-things,
and I've...I don't know...we used to be caught.somewhere...
probably somewhere down here. I figure gee...what am I going
to do? My next thought was maybe I should just try to move
right on out someplace and do a long haired hippy thing, and
find a quiet farm somewhere, and move to a quiet place. But
somehow that doesn't work either because once you move out-
side these lines here...pretty often you're fair game. You
break one of these rules or laws or something, as soon as you
7f
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...move outside theap norms that holds the system together.
So that didn't work very well either. And especially people
who move outside this way or whatever are caught in the same
type trap that the poor generally are. They're fair game. If
you're down here, you're fair game for the police department,
fair game for every social agency, you're fair game for every
kind of thing that can...can happen. And you've got no avenue
to redress wrongs. Now after all those kinds of things I think
back and try to figure...where do I go from here? And I'm
still struggling with that a lot, had some thoughts. One thing
I've noticed is that there've been some technological changes
in our culture which have really changed this as they've hap-
pened. The technology that was invented twenty-five, thirty
years ago that has influenced us very subtlely, very deeply,
we haven't really noticed this. Kind of pushed on the middle,
and really, eliminated middle class America in a great sense.
And what we've ended up with is...either you've got a kind of
power, or you're a person. And that power whatever it may be
begins to control you. Some of the technological changes I'm
talking of here...include the computer. If you've ever argued
with a computer that's got your address wrong on a mailing
75
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...list, you know how a computer has power...the individual
doesn't. Another kind of thing is the atomic bomb...which
has an ultimate kind of power, and we just hope, we don't
know, we don't have very much say in the decision really.
Some other kinds of things like this...television, mass-media,
mass-transit. Another kind of thing is a lecture, such as is
going on right now that you can, sitting here, where some
supposed expert stands up here and delivers a message. And
you are forced to sit there and listen, and you have very
little chance to really send back messages, or to carry on
a discussion. And increasingly I think our lives are caught
in this kind of alwhirl. We can change it, and I see that as
a kind of direction that we are going in, and have been going
in. Well...what I've set about in Raleigh, has been, how do
you begin a ten, twenty year project just like Bill Lyles has
been talking about. I felt a lot of kinship with what he was
talking about. Are there some ways you can take this, kind of
a thing and redesign it? Maybe say that it's like this. And,
so that more people have more say in decision making, so that
more people look to each other, rather than just up the lad-
der, and so that there are fewer people hurting. I know a lot
76
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...of people say that there's always going to be people who
are hurting, but at least we can reduce the number if that
has to be a true kind of thing. One of the ways that I've
been working on this, is through a large scale series of
discussion groups. Trying to bring people together from
different parts of the community. And I have the communities
kind of split up in a lot of different ways, for example,
by race, by income level, by geographic area, by age, by...
I don't know, we could go on and list a lot of other things
here to. But when we divide up a community as they seem to
be increasingly people don't talk to each other if they're
different from themselves. They don't have a sense of com-
munity or identity. And it's very easy to put everybody
else down, and ignore that larger community in that sit-
uation. So we've started working with some discussion groups
where we've sat people around in a medicine wheel kind of
circle, and gotten discussions going, where we've had some
exciting kinds of things happen. Being black and white, and
in Fayetville we did have a very small number two or three
Indians, in the project we ran there with the police depart-
ment, and a variety of other groups somewhat similar to this.
76
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: We hadspeople-from different income levels, different geo-
graphic areas of the community, different age groups, lots
of other kinds of differences...by getting involved in a
discussion group we've been able to stimulate some action
groups. We're using the drug scene as a vehicle for enter-
ing into the community. We aren't just concerned about the
drug scene...what's happening there...important, very def-
initely. We're more concerned about the people throughout
the community beong able to talk to each other, being
acquainted with the problems that exist in different parts
of the community, being knowledgeable, having experience
knowing another person that's different. We've seen some
changes...some good things. We're going to be running
something on the order of fifteen discussion groups start-
ing next week in Raleigh. Each group will have about fif-
teen people. There's been two sessions similar to this in
the past year, so we're beginning to get to...well, we've
already reached four-hundred people, and I think over a
ten year period if you keep this kind of a process going,
there may begin to be...eventually...some changes in the
7Z
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...thing. I don't really know if that's going to happen or
not. I can only hope. I think I might try to stop at that.
I wrote down a couple of thoughts here. I think this group
right here represents a kind of mechanism somewhat similar
to that, somewhat similar to the pow wows, where people
from a large area get together, exchange ideas, get aquainted,
develop some symbols of identity of meaningfulness to them,
and begin to be concerned about their larger community, and
make some things happen. Is it possible to continue meetings
such as this, maybe in a different form? Can this group do
that? Another thing might be some sort of a community educa-
tion group for progress somewhat similar to what we've been
doing in Raleigh, where we've developed a large series of
discussion groups, but each discussion group has involved
people from a diversity of backgrounds. That might be a pos-
sible kind of thing that could be set up here someday, per-
haps to bring about what I'm trying to change.
A: O.k., I think we'd like to break for coffee and cookies now,
and then reconvene in about fifteen minutes if you will, and
we'll have George Stout talk....
U: Tell me when they say we can close the door now.
V: Maybe...
71
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
U: Alrighty... thank you.
A: I think if you'll all take your seats now, we can start on
the second part. For the summary and second part George
Stout is going to start us off, and then we'll have an open
sort of free swinging quesiton and answer period...with peo-
ple that spoke tonight. George?
S: I sometimes have a tendency to start out real loud, and get
real real low...so if you can't hear me in the rear just
raise your hands up, and I'll try and increase my...my vol-
ume. I guess it's awful hard sometimes to reinterpret what
people have said, and particularly when you're sitting there
and, you know, get your ...get your thoughts...get your way
of thinking...have a tendency to go just the opposite. I
guess what I'd like to do is take a look at about four issues
and try to see what has been said, and what needs to be said,
or what should be said...and we'll go from there. It's often
hard for people such as the Indians here I guess in North
Carolina, particularly in this area. Things I've heard this
evening about your history, language because for an Indian
coming from Oklahoma, it's very hard for-me-torceeteptualize
how hard it would be. For.me...I didn't have a history, did-
n't have a language. I was raised in a traditional way, that
^b
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...at the age of six, I could speak no English. And I think
it's very vital, that the...that the research that's being
undertaken here is very needed. Sometimes history, tradition
has advantages and disadvantages the thing that happened in
Ireland...the thing that happened right here in this country,
some of its disadvantages. I'd like to relate to you though
a story that my grandfather once told me. I guess which I
hold very deer to my heart, and I guess that would explain
to you the need for, as I would say a history. My grandfather,
at the age of sixty-seven, and I was at about the age of five
or six...just beginning to get into public schools, use to re-
lay this to me. Use to wake me up at four-thirty, and we'd
go out and slop the hogs, and feed the pigs, and do this, you
know. And at the age of five or six, you know, I mean you
wanted to sleep late. He instilled in me a discipline that I
guess I'll never forget. Because the words, in his own words,
used to say that this is a white man's world. He said you,
he said you have to act, you have to think, you have to be
almost a white man. But he says, I want you to remember one
thing...he said, above and beyond anyhting else, he says,
you always remember that you're an Indian...that you're a
Creek. And I guess this has kind of...you know, every time
80
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...things get a little rough I remember that. And I guess
what I interpret that to mean...like everything is role
playing. You role...you learn how to play a particular type
of role. Whether it's a father, mother, son, a professor in
front of somebedydhe!s-g6ing todlecturecorewhat ever. And I
guess one of the things that I see among Indians is that,
914, we have not learned how to play the role. And I think
this is where a lot of our conflicts arise. So I would urge
that anything you can do to preserve what little history,
what little research that you can do-to acquire this kind of
typegof thing, whether it be written, verbal...that you hang
on to it because for some of us, that's all we've got left.
I would also urge you that you do everything you can to find
out everything you can about your...about your history, your
past and so forth. I'm sorry to say I have nothing else to
say in that area because the Lumbees, as you know, I didn't
know they existed until maybe 1953 or four or five. I'd like
to turn now to pan-Indianism. Some of the things you saw and
heard some of the things I would've said about pan-Indianism.
I hope that pan-Indianism...the word is new, the concept is
new. It began in the late 30s and it began to flourish in the
early 40s when Indians began their mass-migration to urban
8A-
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...areas. I like to look at the word pan-Indianism as a
form of communication between ...between groups, between
individuals, between tribes. A way of learning one another's
...one other...or another individual's way, his past, his
history, or whatever. I hope pan-Indianism will not replace
individual tribal history, tradition, and so forth. In a
session last night I was told that they felt that Indianism
was...was something in...I guess in history...it was...it
would eventually die out. I had to disagree, because I
think the very fact that there is someone here in your
community that's doing research, also that there are a
number of individuals here or they are concerned that some
new awakening or awareness has taken place. And I think the
population census of 1970 indicates that. I disagree with
the census but whatever. Pan-Indianism suggests to me,
again I say, an exchange of information. The more informa-
tion that you can find out about other Indians, other tribes,
a good example was last night when I was invited to attend
one of the singing sessions...a lot of the songs I've heard,
-_r.______ and so forth, I think that's
good. Community organization...I believe in a whole series
of organizations. Three...almost three years ago when the
8;
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...commissioner was putting together a group of Indian ex-
ecutives to...to take over BIA, I was one of them. The
thing that we forgot to do, is we forgot to organize a
local...Indians. Even though I felt our ideas was good,
without relation, or relaying information down to local
areas we got hit and hit hard. We got clobbered. In order
to change a system, I think first you must isolate an issue,
that issue has to be geared to your heart, or some...an
issue that steps on your toes. As an example, let's take a
look at the Alaskan Claim. I feel that the Alaskan Claim
will be the biggest rape this country has ever seen. But
the lower forty-eight states are doing nothing about it as
far as being Indians. An Indian group gets into trouble,
other Indian groups have a hands-off kind of thing. Some-
where, somehow, organizations have to be formed...around
issues. Max Weber once said, "A creation of an organization,
you're also creating a second organization, a third organiza-
tiOn that'll eventually destroy you." This is good, that's
the way it should be...because I feel that organizations
should probably last no more than three or four years...then
new ideas have to emerge...new ideas, new concepts, new di-
rections have to make way. And I think that's one of the
8Y
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...reasons about the failure of the federal system, universities,
local systems and so forth. I think what you've heard the past
two evenings, and I think one thing that you should be vitally
interested in is how do you make the system that exists service
you. How do you make that system deliver the system...the ser-
vices that you need. The things you do, and the things you don't
do it's easy for some of us to get up here and tell you how to
do things, but in actuality, being realistic about it, when you'
begin to implement them...that's where it hurts. Idea, implemen-
tation and results are three distinct different things. The
federal system has not...has not worked because it has not been
able to implement. I'd like to take a crack at research. Research
is good to some extents...some other extents it is not good.
Communities such as this, I think when you let a researcher in,
I think that research should be based on your needs, community
needs, not because of some idea set at a university, wanting to
get his MA degree, PhD, or do some clinic research. And I think
that academicians in universities should keep that in mind. That
when they enter a community to do research...that they've got to
keep community needs at heart. Because if you want to change, you
need some valid information, and research can get that for you.
85
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: Last week I spent the week in New Orleans listening to pre-
sentations,different techniques of research, research papers
and so forth ...that was put on by the American Education
Research Association. There were about thirty papers present-
ed on Indians...only three of them were Indian. All thirty
of them should have been Indians. So these are the things
that we're looking at. I have no qualms about non-Indians
doing research, so long as they keep the needs of the com-
munity at heart, and they focus around that. Because what the
community gets they can use, and utilize effectively. And I
think that possibly that this in essence is what some of the
things I've heard here, some of the things that...some ideas
that I've.tried.to-convey to you. In short, and it may not
be what you want to hear...that's...I'm usually frank, to the
point, and I don't like to use too m any adjectives. One of
the things that you should realize and use...utilize, is the
university right here. Because in theory, this institution
was toset up, and all other institutions, were set up to
give service to the community, whether it be a social agency,
whether it be a university or whatever. And I guess in leav-
ing, or closing...I'd like to leave just one word with you.
That's what Benjamin Franklin once said. And he said that,
86
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ..."If one person has rights," then he said that one person
who has rights, and probably in all actuality that somewhere
there is a right," but he says, "if we deny that one person
his right to think and speak," then he said, "what we have
is," he said "we have denied that people can govern themselves."
With that I would like to go.
U: I think what I'd like now is for you George, and Joel, and
Bob Gregory and Adolph to take the hotline and have questions.
Q: I'd like to go ahead and ask a question in relation to the
people last night. We did all the research, and after you heard
all the facts and cd@o 4, conclusions,I
assume you turned it back in to the federal government, and
I'd like to know if they have reviewed that
they may look into the problems that fttd in the way of the
Indian people attaining the goals that they have in mind as
far as education, technology, this type of thing, and if the
federal government has agreed to look into these problems,
who will administer these problems among the Lumbee people
here in Robeson County 7,- L\ .9
S: Let me react to that from a...I guess from a federal stand-
point, and I'll leave you some examples...different education,
and not just necessarily as a federal Indian education. We've
8f
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
S: ...had research done since, that I'm real familiar with,
since 1928 with the Report. I look at that,
just a waste of funds and a waste of information, because
since that time it's all been rhetoric. The Highland/Hearst
Report to a great extent reenforced what he said back in
1928. I see the /. .f_ Associates Survey that was done
four or five years ago...I don't know if there's one federal
individual who's opened them to look at them. That's why I
guess to one extent that this kind of feedback is good,
because I think it has to be done at a-local area .And the
other thing that I've got to say I guess is that the agencies
the federal agencies respond to the situation.
U: Ouch. :
Q: I'd like to ask one other' question. What was the purpose of
the research?
U: Let me think...
Q: the program.
0: Oh...o.k. Well, I can talk about the...for anybody taping,
this is off the record. I suggest....
Most federal funded...much federal funded research is grant.
The conclusions are contained in the proposal. In other words,
you're going before you start. The education research that
8Z
SUBJECT: LUMBEE FEEDBACK
INTERVIEWER: DANFORD DIAL
0: ...we did was approved what any damn fool already knew. Which
was that you weren't getting the kind of education that you
wanted. You wanted more Indian history in your education,
that Indian kids were not dumber than other people, you know,
things like this. And you do this kind of research in the
hope that the guy who makes the ultimate decision about where
the dollars go could not pick up the book and say, "I made
that decision because all this evidence suggests that that's
the decision I should make...without ever having looked at
it. It discourages this. We know the things that we came out
with, and we know that there are reports since 1928. Not much
has been done about it...a little bit, but not much. They did
pass the new Indian Educa....
END TAPE TWO, SIDE TWO
89
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