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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida
SLW-typist
Dean McClosky who comes from the University of Maryland up in
Baltimore will tell you e4 his study of the Baltimore community.
He was there right after I was and knows alot more about the
Baltimore scenA and what's been happening up there, particularly
the last three years. When he finishes Ed who is
from North Carolina State, a sociologist up there, is going to
tell you about the study he's been doing locally in the last
oh, I guess, what d..wa say, 'bout eight months?
da: Yeah, about a year.
S: Oniamily structure and fertility and things like that. Then
we're going to have a break and I SYnia outside and
we've got some homemade cookies. We'll have some cookies
and coffee and then when we come back Gene Bryceman who's from
Auburn University where he heads up the Sociology Department is
going to sort of react to what I said and *e what Ed said and
what Dave said and maybe poke some holes in it or raise some
questions about it and kind of invite from you the type of things
you'd like to hear about. And after Gene sort of, tries to pull
together some of the things we were saying, it will be open for
general discussion, general questions, whatever you want. And that's
sort of the way we're going to do it tonight. So tonight 0 is
going to be primarily formal studies that have been made on the
IndiansA Tomorrow night we're going to deal much more with sort
of what we call action programs. Things that are, that are sort
2
LUM 78A 7
of, sort of on a now basis. Professor is going to give se a
short rundown on history with particular reference to specific
dates that have been important -t the Indians, specific laws
that have affected the Indians,Athe kinds of problems I guess that
you'v-4e d in terms of identity, not only in terms of yourself, but
in terms of an identity as far as the state and nation go. After
his presentation Joe Lyle whom many of you know through his work
with the Lumbee Craftsmen's Fair and the 4lrmant July home-
coming celebration is going to talk a little bit about pan-Indianism,
some of the things perhaps that he's been doing, and he said he's
got some slides and f if we can find a slide projector we'll
have some slides that he's taken. And after Joe's presentation
Bob Gregory, who's ... I guess a / community organizer is going to
do some talking to you about *he community organizations,.-w&
power structures, the way changes happen, the way you make
changes happen. Bob has done some work with the Indians up in
Fayetteville and with the school integration kinds of things
he's been into. He's currently up in Raleigh with Drug Action
of W\(I a County. He's the executive secretary of that. Bob's
a kind of special guy. He in many ways is into the Drug Action
Program not only to deal with kids who are having trouble with
drugs, but because he sees the whole problem has started involving
the rest of the society too. And it's sort of his way of getting
into the regular part of society and helping them move towards some
changes. After that, after Bob's presentation tomorrow night,
we'll again have a break and I hope we'll have some cookies and
coffee.:. And George Scott who is down here from Bureau of Indian
Affairs will be the reactor to that. George is uh, I'm not sure
3
LUM 78A
of his exact title, he's a big wheel in the Bureau of Indian
Affairs Office of Education and is one of the sharpest and most
knowleeable guys that I know in that area. And so he'll be a
reactor and then again tomorrow night we'll open it up for
general questions, comments, conversation or whatever. In the
event that any of you would like to talk to any of us in t terms
of a sort of a private or group consultation we will be around
we-& 41 4e arouTnd-most of us tomorrow, and if you'll let me know
I'll see
at the conclusion of this meeting tonight4if we can't set some-
thing up. For whatever purposes because a project that yeua you're
wo"Eing on or want to get working maybe we can,-1 -t l SLnOD a0ule-
so we'll be here for that. And with that I think I'd like to tell
you a little bit about what I did.
I came down here about five years ago to take a look at 0 some
Indians down here. I didn't know that they were here. And some-
body 41 said, "oh, you better go down and take a look at those
Indians." And I came down at Christmas time and there's always a
town where the people I met were just sort of open to me and wel-
comed me and I decided that this was where I wanted to do my field
work. So what I did was to begin to look at the Indians down here
and look at them up in Baltimore and try and figure out why they
were going to Baltimore, why they did so well up in Baltimore.
And I came up with four cultural themes that seemed to make sense.
Now
/ cultural themes are kind of tricky; they're really not real,
but they're things that make sense in mind and I hope
And the four themes that seemed to be
going for Lumbee Indians and seemed to make sense for them. The
first one was that a man is a man. There's a sense of fby god, a
4
LMT 78A
man is something special. And this isn't to put down women be-
cause women are women. There's a very clear distinction between
what is a man's role, what is a woman's role. There's a special
sense of pride which seems to go with e e\ A Indians down
here. A man's a man, and by golly, you don't fool with him, you
lokeve.
know. Horseplay, fool around, yeah, but it gets to a point were. a
man is something special. This is very, very strong. You see it
especially in your young men when they walk down the street.
in Baltimore Uh, there's a special
sense that home is Rob son County. No matter where you go,
9--
no matter what yore job, no matter how far you've been or
how long you've been, home is back here. Home always will be
back here. There's a third theme that sort of is in my head came
out "now for now." And it's in a very special sense because the
Indians down here work hard, save, put their kids through school,
save money to buy their farms and fight to keep it. But there's a
spontaneity that's there; there's a "now for now" kind of thing.
I'll give you an example. There was one time that I was supposed
to speak I think at a PTA meeting down here. And everybody down
here knew it, but I was up in Raleigh and I didn't know it.
And the reason everybody down here knew it was because they had
somebody who said, "It was a face-to-face conversation, "now"
kind of thing." But because I was up in Raleigh I didn't meet any
of the Indians up there so nobody told me, which was very much
spontaneous kind of living in the present, which seems to be
characteristic of the Indians here. And it fits in with the
fourth one. Which I characterize as "sometimes broke, but
5
never poor." There's a, there'a a feeling about being Indian
that you may be down, you may not have any money in your pocket,
things may be bad, but you're not poor. You may be broke but
you're not poor. Being poor somehow involves a different kind
of sense of the spirit I guess. And the resources that let you
feel that you may be broke but you're not poor, these are your
your
community kin resources,/friendship network resources that J4 are
very strong within the Indian community. You may not have
value in your pockets, but you're not going to go hungry and
you're not going to be out in the cold at night because there's
going to be somebody, some of your kin's going to help you out,
going to take you in and feed you. You can count on it.
So these four themes that seem to really make sense to the
Indian community up in Baltimore because it gave them when they got
up there a special reserve that other groups in Baltimore didn't
seem to have., They could count on it. In many ways what they did
in parts of Baltimore anyway was to sort of recreate Pembroke
up 1Y there, you know? The same friends, the same way of dealing
with people, the same way of feeling about each other and it really
helped them get through alot of tough times up there.
The other area of study I did was with the National Study of
American Indian Education in which this area was studied. It was
the largest non-reservation area; the only one east of the Mississippi
except for Chicago:and Baltimore, which of course is the same
area here And one of the things that
we found out was about fifty per cent of the teachersAteaching in
public schools in the whole United Syates come from here. About
45% of the public school administrators who are Indian come from
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LUM 78A
here. And I think 65% of the teacher aides who are Indian
who are teaching in the United S/ates came from here. And when
we looked at the statistics t how many Lumbees are there, are
there 45% of the Indians, in the United S rates are Lumbee? No,
only 7%. So it began to look like somehow something was going on
down here that was making education really important to the
people in a way that wasn't true perhaps, or-weeneon. didn't
seem to be true on some of the other Indian settlements or
Lw e-
some of you know the other Indian reservations. And I had an
idea that part of it was this tremendous school system. That
this was, that it had Indian teachers in it; that this was one of
the very few places in the United States where you had a bunch of
Indians, where a mother and father could save, work hard, send
their kids through schoolsand send him onto college, get him a
college education, and not have to say to him, "okay, snn, you've
got your college education, goodbye." Because on most of the
Indian reservation areas and most of the Indian settlements in the
the
United States once you get / college education, you have to leave
because there aren't any jobs. And there were some jobs here;
there are some jobs. These were the sort of important things that
I was coming up with.
Uh, Abe, could I pass it on to you to pick up from there to
what happened in Baltimore.
A: -IL have some notes in front of me, but I also
have a watch. I'm going to try to stick pretty closely to a time
limit for myself. My name's Abe w "eky and I want to tell
you just one bit about the basis of my saying something about
Indians in Baltimore. You might know where I get some of the facts
7
LUM 78A
A'/ that I talk about. I won't claim that my facts really re-
present the truth, as truth perhaps could be written. But I try
to be quite objective about my facts in looking at the Indians
in Baltimore. And I'm well aware that it's about the Indians in
Baltimore that I talk mostly. But we can't really talk about
the Indians in Baltimore without trying to understand a little bit
about the tradition the Indian springs from here in Robeson County.
I've known the Indians in Baltimore for about four years, be-
ginning about October of 1968. And then in the beginning
"A1969 r-d r "'.aa.a..a'j- j ---a for a year
thereafter I lived where a good many Indians lived in Baltimore.
If you've been there I lived on East Baltimore Street and Broad-
way for about a year and visited where Indians were and made
many friends among the Indians in Baltimore. And I came to feel
really
that IAwas making a good effort to understand how they looked
at things, how they understood things, and felt in a better po-
sition to be able to write and say what I think are the important
things as far as the Indians feel about themselves and their
life in Baltimore. Now anybody writing about this, about the Indians
in .Baltimore would have to really begin with saying just a little
bit about the question of identity--being Indian, among the Indians
in Baltimore. I just want to comment on a few aspects of this
being Indian. Clearly Indians here in Robeson County feel quite
Indian. There's ) no problems then because there are many things
about Robeson County and the Indian communitythat make it possible
for Indians to feel very Indian. Now it is true that Indians in
Baltimore have built their own place where a good many of them
8
LUM78A
4:lived shortly after they came. A\ot of them have stayed together.
But it really is very hard in the big city to maintain an identity
with your own people. There are so many other things that+egin
to interfere with this. And this happens in Baltimore too. You
know I think in the years) the Indians first came to Baltimore
around the second world Xar for the defense industry, I gather
anyhow. And I think for the next twenty years or so a good many
Indians really had to depend on family, being raised in Indian
families, and Indian churches to really get any sense of being
Indian. Y8u really couldn't get it in Baltimore schools where
the teachers were not Indian and there was not other way that
many of these kids could really feel Indian. So that they
really depended on their families and they really depended on
not just the immediate family of father and mother--there were
aLot of kinfolk around and they did have relatives who would
come and they'd visit with, but essentially it's a pretty hard
job for a family to really explain to a kid what it means to be
Yot ?tVA
Indian and IE-hough many people go to church even though I
think church means a great deal to the Indiansn Baltimore. The
way the Indians in Baltimore talk about it everybody went to
church here in Pembroke and perhaps you do. But I can say in
Baltimore not that many go to church. Since I've been to church
quite often and I know they don't get any tremendous crowds in
the Indian churches in Baltimore. So that really meant something
Indians,
of a problem for the Indians to feel that they were to re-
cognize something about being Indian. Now I must say right at the
beginning when talking about the Indians in Baltimore that I
think one of the important things that happened beginning in late
9
LUM 78A
'68 and early 1969 was the establishment of the American Indians
Study Center which was established by the Lumbee Indians from
__ from Robeson County. And this Center is still in existence,
there are many problems in any organization continuing, and I
don't want to go into the problems that they have. But one
of the things in the four years that I have noticed and felt very
strongly are the Indians come 'ewn in big numbers to the Indian
Study Center or don't come, and they Rally don't come in very
big numbers. Everybody knows about the Indian Center. You can
talk with any Lumbee practically in Baltimere and they know there
is an Indian Center and they know the people that are associated
with it, and many of them when they're in trouble do come to the
Indian center and try to get help from them. I think it's been one
of the biggest things about Indians in Baltimore; feeling foam.
Viw- Indian and recognizing their connections, not only with Robeson
County. People can feel strongly about Robeson County as a nice
place to live, nice place to bring your kids, nice place to raise
'em, but they must still fl something else if they want to
feel Indian, and I think aot of them who feel strongly about
Robeson County not only feel that way because it was home, but feel
that way because it's Indian. And they want to keep up this
connection of being Indian. And I do assure you that there are
problems about this, you know. After all kids do get married,
you meet lirls or you meet fellas who are not Indian and there's a
lot of intermarriage taking place. But essentially I think the
Indian Center is one of the big things about Indians \j sa- AcsWrt
who are still feeling quite Indian. This is not a plug for the
Indian Center, and whether or not this particular center continues
10
LUM 78A
/, or not I think the time is ripe for that kind of thing in Baltimore,
which incidentally has about 2500 Indians at least by now. So that
it is a big substantial Indian community there, and I think the
Indian Center has done a very good job in making people aware of
being Indian. But I want to talk to you about some other things
that I felt quite keenly about the Indians in Baltimore.
First, I wanted to tell you one thing that is important;
and probably you're well aware of this. But for an outside like
me it's something I've become acquainted with trying to get their
point of view $ about it. I would have assumed when I went into
that community that certain would be very important. You know
people would feel they were getting prestige if they had certain
kinds of attributes; if they were rich, if they had very good edu-
cation, if they came from the right families. These were the
sorts of things that one ordinarily expected in the United SXates.
People are going to feel this gives you prestige. Well, not
that 44 these things aren't important among the Indians in
Baltimore and I'd like to say education does mean lot to
the Indians there, but essentially when talking with Indians there
I concluded now I might be wrong, see, I warned you) But these
are just things I observe and talk and then I make certain kinds
of guesses, if you want, about it, ,Ad I really felt there
were just two basically kinds of groupings with Indians in Baltimore.
As they saw themselves. One group was a "bar" crowd, and the other
group was __?pt This is the way they described themselves.
There a bar crowd that obviously they, the hangouts were
bars, and some of you may be familiar with the bars around
Baltimore. Some of them have since declined considerably. 'Course
11
LUM 78A
A' that area of Baltimore is undergoing a great deal of change. And
this was the crowd that might go out and a+ot and
lots of problems, T in trouble with the law A
But they were really not a major part of the Indians in Baltimore.
I couldn't guess numbers, though I did i-9make a guess in
the study that I did, and I think that essentially I was right
about that time.. probably less than a third of these
Indians were in this particular a third of the mass were in
this particular kind of group. But the majority really were the
hardworking kind, staying away from the bars, some of them were
the "saved" respectable who went to church, and I say, not
many went to church. So you can't really say so many of them were(
savedl *id AMoot of them who even were not saved were not
going to the bars and not drinking and they really divided that
way. There were those who were the drinkers who will lie right
down in the streets A3ke Ac but there were
alot of others who worked very hard and wouldn't think of doing that
and really stayed away from the bars because if you went to the
bars you were likely to get into lot of different kinds of
trouble. When people get drunk, you can't really tell what they
might be doing. Now I do say there is a certain kind of change
taking place among the Indians there. I do think that the kids
who are going to school in Baltimore and a ot of them graduate,
lot of Indians, well, not ayot, Indians hat have graduated
from the schools in Baltimore --these aren't the only kinds of
differences they establish among themselves. It really does make
alot of difference now to a kid what kind of "occupation that they
12
LUM 78A
go into. S one of the things I did in the summer of 1969
a sort of a questionnaire among a number of Indians. What kind
of an occupation do you think is a very good occupation, what
kind of occupation would you went your kids to follow if your kids
could do whatever it is he wanted to do, what would you like him
to do? And I was struck then by the fact that the skilled trades
were the kinds of things they wanted their kids to do. They wanted
them to be carpenters and electricians and plumbers., This is
what a ot of people thought and they're reallyhigh-paying trades,
especially UL Aoe& td e Baltimore. But when you
talk with Indians now as I did this past summer going through
another kind of follow-up survey, -ot of people want their
kids and alot of kids want to be LleaiC- They do want to be
doctors and they want to be lawyers and they want to be teachers.
Not that a good many of them are going to get that far because
onef the big problems of the Indian kids is that a ot of them
don't really complete their high school; alot of them do drop out-
as Greg found out in his survey. And this is still
continuing. I must tell you this is happening in city schools all
over the United States and it isn't just schools in the central
cities; it isn't just Indianqi there's something wrong with a good
many schools in central cities and they're really discouraging alot
of kids from continuing. I think this is -af1EPy true of the
Baltimore schools, too. I do think Indian kids are changing and I
wanted to make that point sort of emphatic The Indian kids are
not just going to go along with this notion of a "bar" crowd,
which a\ot of them will not participate in and something vaguely
respectable. A ot of them are going to sort of from the
13
LUM 78A
A' major dominant white society the notion kind of occupation, how
much money you're going to make, this is going to be very important
for them. Now I want to point out something else that I thought
very important about it. You know out of this notion, and I
don't know whether you're going to agree with me about this ka A ,i
I said this statement, I don't know whether you had a chance to
V
read what I wrote, I gave a copy to the Indian Center in Baltimore
and they presented a copy to Pembroke State University: I got the
notion listening to th se Indians that essentially among themselves,
and it may well be true over here too, they are what I think
social scientists would say, an egalitarian society. That is that
they really feel quite equal to each other. And when Greg speaks
about a man, feeling very important and very significant
this
about being a man, part of it is / sense th&t he's as good as any
other man, and he feels this quite keenly. But he also feels this
you knoW in i an utLrCe of this discrimination around Baltimore
as I would ... I'm presumtuous enough to say there's been discrimination
around Robeson County, discrimination against Indians as T a
when
there has been against many minority groups in Blatimore. And/the
Indians A say this they're saying this in a world of inequality.
But there is still this sense that they're as good as any other
man and in effect they're as good as any other Indian and this may
be a very fine idea. I do think it's a very fine idea, but this is
why if
one of the reasons I suspect that/they perceive any kind of insult
at all alot of Indians are ready to respond very quickly, you
know. It's __, but I do think essentially the Indians
in Baltimore are very, very egalitarian. It really ... the only ...
14
LUM 78A
Sif the only thing that counts is that you're respectable, it
doesn't take ... anybody can be respectable; anybody can stop
drinking and anybody can really work hard and stay at work, so that
in a sense there are not just scarce positions of prestige, any-
body can have thatkind of prestige. And in this sense I think
there's something very, very important to a ot of Indians and
very, very good about the way that they are. Just one other thing,
though, I wanted to talk about and that's making a living for
Indians in Blatimore. I think it's important and perhaps you
know.
The Indians came here, came to Baltimore in the second World
War and they were then the defense industry, Baltimore being a
major industofal center and really as you go north from Robeson
it's
County/the first big industrial center that you're going to hit.
And I suspect that's one of the reasons why so many stop off in
Baltimore and stay there. Baltimore I really is quite a diversified
Industrial community. It 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 Bethlehem plant, it has asot of small industries,
+t-aws well known for the needle trade, but the big thing that In-
dians went into after the second world war was something else hap-
pening in many cities through out the United States, the building
boom. There was a great deal of building that went on in Baltimore,
and many Indians when they came there wAnt into the building trade.
Now there really are two parts of the building trade, there were
then and probably still are. There's new construction and there's
the re-modeling of old buildings. Unions then controlled the new
construction. And the re-modeling the unions in Baltimore didn't
15
LUM 78A
4' bother with. This was left to the non-union people. And that's
where the Indians went. What this really means is that many Indians'
really took much lower pay than tlrey did ... Lt.han the union men were
getting in new construction. Their pay was considerabl-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 at the poverty level. They were not three years ago and they
still are not now. They're really not ... they're far from the
unskilled type of many rural migrants to cities and people have
really picked up these building trade skills and a ot 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 work of
the Indians in Baltimore), something that struck me very strongly
a few years ago and has come out particularly this summer. A+ot of
Indians have joined unions. Unions in recent years have been very
accepting of Indians. And there's an Indian, for example, who's
the president of the steelworkers' local, a Lumbee Indian, president
of a s4kil+edworkers' local, _round 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 joined maybe they joined because they had to,
they were in union shops and had to join. Now l[ot of them feel
quite strongly about unions and I this past summer gave them some
sort of hypothetical questions like: if you're j.ts if
your union wanted to go on strike for money and if the boss were
to say to you, "Don't go out with the union, I'm going to give
16
LUM 78A
you more pay, would you stay on, or wouldn't you stay on? And
almost universally among the Indians I asked, no, they wouldn't
stay on. 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.
As they said the boss after while wouldn't Aj-t them. I think
this is one of the important 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. Essentially I want to say
in the area of acculturation, or what we call acculturation, I
really feel that Indians have basically maintained their own
groups. You know, essentially the Indian friends are ... the Indians have
friends among other Indians. This is something that Indians are
beginning to look away from in Baltimore. There are friends they
picked up in difeien areas, but if you're going to talk about
the basic friendship networks of Indians let me say that most of the
Indians basically have friends among other Indians. This is what
a
I would call/kind of structural pluralism you have in Baltimore.
And I want to point out too that Baltimore is a very ethnic-divided
town; that Baltimore has all kinds of ethnic groups: Poles and
Italians, and what do you think the Italians do? The Italian
friends are mostly among other Italians, and the Polish friends are
mostly among other Poles. It is not unusual for the Indians to be
that way. But I have found the Indians really much more receptive
towards moving out toward people on the outside. So that I do
think they're in a stage of transition now. There is this feeling
strongly about a holding -on to being Indian, and yet there is
also, there are many interesting things about people i on the
17
LUM 78A
A outside, that Indians are beginning to find out about. It's hard
to predict any future as far as the Indians are concerned in
Baltimore. I do think they will hold on to their Indianness. I
A
think there are going to continue to be all kinds of changes among
them and a number of them are just going to feel after a while
marrying other people that maybe they don't want to be Indian. And
this is something that if a strong Indian movement develops over
here it's r6g-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. Thank you very much. Fci7
: Maybe on good thing about coming third and almost last thei maybe
I can get to play the devil's advocate and let you squirm for a
minute and turn to the light side. Went down to V)4ML4A-,
last summer to make a talk and I was introduced in a 4eeaitv-
way, and so I've decided maybe I'll change that introduction to-
night and say I'm employed as a demographer, but after being
introduced as a democrat, down in I% w ,e I still want to
be known as demographer in those Couple of funny stories
I'd like to tellto get your thought patterns on what we're trying
to do in Robeson County. I know you must have had numerous
stories of accounts of the little "Johnny" i jokes. As Johnny
comes in to mommy and daddy he's got various questions. The
question that I suppose has bea ue 4-e befuddle all children
at some point in their lives: 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 flying into mommy and
says, "Hey, Mommy, where did I come from?" She says, "oh, no.
This poor child. Is he ready for life?" And she says, "yeah,
18
LUM 78A
he's ready." So she took him in on the sofa and sat down
and proceeded to tell the story of life. About halfway through
Johnny says, "whoa, Mommy, that's not what I mean. Billy comes
from South Carolina, where do I come from?" ... Well ... Greg
and Abe have talked about migration ;here people originate and
move to, hither and there. The other little story when Johnny
comes in with the same question and he says, "Hey, Mommy, where
do babies come from?" "Oh, my gosh." 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
said, "Babies come from seeds. And God takes the seed and puts
it in Mommy's tummy, and that seed grows and that's where babies
come from." Well, that satisfied little Johnny. It's 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. He got one of those forward
ideas; some bright light bulb come on, blump, seeds and babies.
and
He goes tearing out of the yard digs himself a ,.hole,/puts his
apple seed in the hole. 'Goes away-happy. Doesn't think about it
anymore 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 againjbsitting on that mound of lirt was the
ugliest old toad frog that Johnny had ever seen in all his life.
And he looked at the toad frog, the toad frog looked at Johnny,
and he looked at the toad frog and you know,U-h ,
OD RaM wr4 4 1ii \kOrj 0.And finally he summed up all his
courage and said, "If I weren't your daddy, I'd stomp t4he-al
19
LUM 78A
the hell out of you!" ... Now, now ... we demographers who've
studied people)and I think that's the way I'd like for you to
think of what we do as we study people. Now we've studied these
put )
three processes that I've tried to imaginatively A these stories
about Johnny. We study about birth, we study about people
dying and we study about people moving. I've got to tell you one
other story I have --a defense for what I'm going to say. Do
you know about the lion in the jungle? I thought I did, but I
started telling some students one day and they corrected I me
so many times. You correct me when I get the story wrong. A lion
woke up one morning and he said, "I'm the king of the jungle.5
",Ia, ha."7' going to go out and find out if that's not true."
And so he went stomping through the jungle and came to a chimpanzee,
and he said, "Chimpanzee, who's the king of the jungle?" The
chimpanzee looked at him and said, "You are, oh, mighty lion."
And the lion beamed and- treegh4 out his chest and he could barely
walk off. He came to a skunk. Skunk? Yeah, skunk. He said,
"Skunk, who's the king of the jungle?" He said, "Oh, you are, oh,
mighty lion." And the f lion was feeling pretty good, walking
tall all the time. Came to a clearing in the jungle and came to
an old elephant standing there grazing away in the trees. He goes,
"Elephant, who's king of the jungle?" And the elephant kept 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?"
And the elephant took his snout or his trunk or whatever you call
it, reached down, caught the old lion around -ts stomach, his belly
20
LUM 78A
or whatever you call it, walked over to this big tree and started
slapping him, wham, wham, wham, and you can go on, you know,
again all night and he put the lion down and the
lion went dragging off to the edge of the clearing and got to
the safety of the trees, and turned around and looked over his
shoulder and said, "You didn't have to get so mad 'cause you didn't
know the right animal!" Well, I guess I differ from my two col-
point
leagues who have gone before me because I'm not at a to give you
the right answers yet. I would like to take this opportunity to
express our appreciation to all of you, and I, I hope we've cap-
tured some of you in our study, think one thing that we fail to teach
our students as we teach them how to do research projects, is to
to
go back andkthank people for taking part. And so I do sincerely
express our appreciation for the willingness of people in this
county to i j ill .
Four years ago a group of young Ph.Ds 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 idea to know the need to dis-
cover further knowledge in the area of these "Johnny jokes" I
spoke. And so we sat down td 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's one of the richest counties insofar as the
amount of agricultural products go. So we were interested in
a, can I say poorer county, to see what's taken place. At the
21
LUM 78A
same time Robeson County was a unique county because it afforded
us an opportunity to look if not ae a usual color breakdown or
racial breakdown of whites and blacks. But here is a third group
to consider. We should look not only to 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 interest and brought us to this county to study 4-t. 4.Vt
was the fact that in a demographer's language, people language,
Robeson County is a rural county. And if you wanted to look at the
storehouse of information where people have studied the peopling
process over time you -goto all the major studies starting with the
Indianapolis study back in the forties and coming to the Princeton
studies in the fifties, and the growth of American families in
the fifties and sixties has been primarily with urtfan places,
big cities. And so we started what we thought then was
a vacuum in what we know about the n process. They
found very few, no major studies, let's put it that way, studying
the people in 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 De-
velopment and they awarded us with funds that we might conduct
a two-year study here in Robeson County. The other unique thing,
while I'm talking about the unique things that we decided to try
to accomplish, I think it will be the strongest part of the study
that will emerge, 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 maie and female in understanding
the pop process. The majority of the previous studies
22
LUM 78A
have attempted to gain data only from female respondents. And
predominately white female respondents. So we think we have an
opportunity with the data which we have just completed the
collection process, which some of you are probably aware of, the
last two or 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 coming
back and tell you what 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 particularly interested in pur-
suing. -I y\teL- 4eyoo pC fhe^Lt the major variables that
people have looked at before trying to understand the idea of
residence, a .d-who- y.... whether you live in a rural area
or an urban area; income-wise, and just tied up in a concept that
sociologists call "social Q ." I know you must have read
?-eso 0 "'s-<
countless accounts of the relationship between the -Ieealin
process and ones of social ecSS So we decided to come down
and take a look at some other variables that av been explored
in great detail. We wanted to try avd understand peoples'
values, and what they feel to be most important to them. Also
*t. to look at what Ni people think about various items and
what their attitudes are towards various issues. To look at
the goals, the end results the people direct their data lines
toward. And perhaps most important of all is 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 and particularly their
behavior a dthe pep. i- process. So we come in and I'm not
23
LUM 78A
going to ask you to identify yourself, if you're a part of our
survey, you'll recognize some of the, the variables, )VT
questionS&a-und thLe ... we're pursuing along these lines trying to
get at goals, attitudes, values and social relationships.
END SIDE 1.
Side 2---
... who announces UL T 'yE 0\ to the people in the La I Ke
says I want to announce some good 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 excellent speed! Well, let's
look at the bad news of the Indian situation in America and
also
perhapsimore specifically your own. As for the liabilities Indians
in North Carolina are a rural people. Rural lives have obvious
advantages, such as privacy, no smog, no traffic jam, friendly
neighbors, you can go on and list them. But it has some obvious
disadvantages: services such as phon, water, mail delivery, medical
facilities, schools) are costly to provide when people are widely dis-
persed. In some cases in some rural areas some of these services
are not available at all. Some Indians for example and the
process in New Mexico must go a hundred miles to the $ nearest
hospital to have a baby delivered in a hospital. X Wre that far
from a doctor, that far from medical facilities. Paved roads,and
rural electification has changed this a great deal but there're
still disadvantages: rural schools, rural churches tend to be
smallUr and are much less able that their city counterparts to pro-
vide some services for their constituents. Rural people in recent
years have received less and less political attention. I was
associated with an valuation of ydderal programs for three years.
24
LUM 78A
That program was brought into being essentially to see that rural
And
people got seme of the services that urban people were getting. AI
would say that 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. 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 schools is well known and needs
little elaboration here. The point is that when the nation as a )Vo\t
considers inter-group relations it tends to think in terms of
A
black and white, .A third deficit is that relative to whites Indians
as a category are not wealthy. If you work 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 Gounty and,
ale. according to the reports tonight)also in Baltimore. In
Halifax County, Warren County, North Carolina, in Washington County,
Alabama where I've been studying Indians there, and San __
County, New Mexico, Indians are the poorest of the poor. Third
or-fourth, historically Indians have had educational deficits.
Indiantschools often were a third system of schools in many counties,
poorly financed by the government and often paid for out of the
meager resources of Indians themselves. If they wanted schools, they
had to do it themselves, and 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 prob-
lem in a society where if you're born poor and you want to move
25
LUM 78A
up the economic ladder you need to get a quality education and
lacking a quality education you have problems. It has already
been mentioned that keeping kids in school is 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. Histori-
cally3 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, in
Sampson County, and elsewhere in the state. Many times they were
an outgrowth of{Sunday school or some other organizations. 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, 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 ancestors
that one must believe that those early Indians must have been real
men and real women. It is a fact that Indians have come to be heroes
r I
of the Ame ican past and so I think that there is now a resfwoir of
g p will w4ch can be tapped whenever appeals are made for re-
sources. I think the l .ne-- r-he 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 be-
come 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
26
LUX 78A
it was that said it, this university provided youngsters with role
models. They, they could see that an Indian could grow up to be a
professor at a university. An Indian could do something.....Searn
a good living, be respected. And I think the fact that right here
in this county Indians have their own institution of higher learning
ha., has been a very, very important thing, and I don't know how to
estimate the total impact .e- of this school. For example, the
uaLJiUL 3 J?> Indian school in the early years was almost entirely
staffed by persons who had originally got their training here.
You've been able to acquire land and a good bit of it. I went just
to get some feel for this to the old record books today. And looked
at some of these early deeds that were given to Indians.
YouPheld onto land since the seventeen hundreds. You said that
home ia, is Robeson County. Here's where people own land; here's
where people k*ve put down their roots. It's been an important
thing and I would say if I might give any advice for the future:
acquire land and hold onto it. There is an important sense in
America in which the landowner has had a better deal than the
person who did not own land. County officials' recognizepeople who
own land. You tend to get a better deal in court. And so I
think this has been an important part of your heritage.
Dr. Peck has mentioned your resources which enablefou 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 good use in Baltimore. Dr. McClosky
has n.tioned the role of the Indian Center. And I think he has
also touched an important area when he mentioned the occupational
aspirations of the Indians. That young man INfr with me today
27
LUM 78A
he says, "I don't know what I'm going to do." He 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 support yourself any-
where you go in the country, if you learn to be a good one. But
then there's been a shift away somewhat from the trades, the skilled
trades to the professions, and perhaps this is, is wholesome.
It was mentioned also that you have learned the worthwhileness f of
pulling together. I think this is terribly important. It's mani-
fested itself in the union orientation in Baltimore. The Indians in
Robeson county Sampson county, somewhat later in Halifax and
Warren A County did establish institutions, did learn to pull to -
gether. Had their schools, their churches, their political or-
ganizations. This has Wi not been true of all Indian groups. One
large Indian group in south Alabama so far as I know never established
an Indian club, never established many of their own churches nor
their own 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 a e elaty the situation. I hope that this provides a
vehicle for some of the questions that 4A you might want to address
to the members4f the panel. How should we handle this? How do we
want to ...?
S: N you stay here too' You had something to say. Eddie, do you
want to-come and 46 What y'all think?
: ..... identification. This process is two-fold. They sent a
team of interviewers to each household \ A wvLA
on a first visit and asked the persons in that household to
identify to rou do you belong? And so each
identify to VU group do you belong? And so.each
28
mus 78A
each household identified themselves as one of the three groups
we're looking at.
SNow you include n your study the people in Baltimore and the people
... what peoples are you going to include ... will be in your
study?
L: Only those persons that were living here physically in the county last
summer, summer of 1972.
: Greg, you may speak to this tomorrow night, but some of us may not
be here tomorrow night and others ..... You better
come.
................. ( garbled question.)
: You can get me in trouble on that one. Okay, uh, as long as you
had your own separate school system and sort of by agreements X
number of jobs Indian jobs, it't-ee L you in the middle, put a
ceiling on you. But it was 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 the sense of jobs, is seriously threatened. Tenure
is a very shaky thing wkth as a result it isn't only in Robeson
County, it's all over this state and it's in every state that has
gone through this desegregation thing. Okay, so that, that sort of
sets the picture. et--rt-- in a sense the Indian position, Indian
economic position in the county, is in jeopardy. The double-voting
issue comes in because it limits and minimizes the Indian oice
in decide ng who's going to make the decisions about who has the
jobs. Be these decisions based on deciding what kinds of tests
do weeople?- Do we pick up a seven foot ruler and say, okay,
everybody's who's seven J feet tall, they pass, and if. you are
29
LU 78A
under Zr then we'll.rank you below it or whatever the test may be.
The people who are going to decide >i, are the people that are
e_ 44.,-4 +L k ,A0tj[ -u -tOt
elected in thie county. pe ..pli J-aL .CiiO
gM#-V eft\X1- 40 4&LV sDAb, LcvVQr a^4
S 4 And so they, they don't have the same concern, the same gut level
my-kids-are-being-educated concern that the Indians and the other
county residents do have. And *ta, the double vote thing really
is preventing in many ways- or many poeple believe this, and you
can't prove it by facts, but it certainly seems a reasonable be-
lief that it's preventing more Indian strength on that school
board and you got --a third of the population, I don't think
you've got a third of the membership. And you've got probably
well over a third of the population of the county school system.
And you certainly don't have a proportional representation on
the board. And the reason you don't I think is the double-vote.
And that's why ikhA, this particular issue is really very
crucial to the Indian community here.
"-on't you think that norms can be misleading?
you ask so many questions, you get so many answers --don't you
think those terms can A be misleading q sometimes o4-e ,L
S0\A p _I4_ because '
people, people are individuals. I, I'm very unique person; _
-- ateeth that I'm great or anything but I'm my own person, you
\
LUM 78A 30
know and I have my own identity. That's my first question:
don't you think that norms are misleading. And-2 don't you
think that thkenly way we're ever going to get anywhere
S .. L__lJt_____ I ______ ( And I dis-
agree with aLot of the conclusions I heardrdrawn, but don't
you think we're going to have to take these summations that
you've come up with and put them to work and next time we have a
seminar you be sitting in the front row and we'll be standing
there? You know, reverse the roles. I know all you guys are
oV'- vo\eK. At iCAUO\)
V: I would like to see very much the roles reversed. I do feel
still speaking about Baltimore that I would like to see studies
of the Indian people mcr" ad" mr done by the Indian Center
and by Indian people. And I think they're beginning to. Now one
of the first ... you know you can do studies without any back-
ground in how to do it and then you my come out with information
which may not be very reliable. So why don't they begin
some help getting it. I
don't know why some of the Indians who are more educated here
can't help them out in Baltimore too in the Indian Study Cen-
ter and tell them some of the ways in which studies might be
done. I do agree with you. I think it would be very important
LUM 78A
for Indians to really be doing most of these studies of the
Indian people. 14,, I feel somewhat guilty about this, and I
would say that I do try and whenever 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 do hope there's more, there more Indians who will
be involved doing this rather than people from the outside
and
coming A saying things. Though I still think ast Mr.
says, Dr. L YU (7) says, it is important for outsiders
also to be looking. It's not that we can fully understand
as outsiders. I 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 as objectively as I can. 4
t adds a little bit more. But I do think the insiders'view
is very, very important and would be much more illuminating
than my view.
: Let me just throw one thing in. As an anthropologist when we
look at behavior we find people sort of spread all over the
map but tending ... most of them fall in a particular area.
The feeling that a man is a man. There may be some homosexuals
among the Indians. Obviously they don't feel this. But
most Indians kind of fit somewhere here in the middle. So
that's the first thing we do. And then as an anthropologist
the second thing we do is to go down into the situation and
we try and behave in terms of those things that we've seen.
And first thing we find out is that we've made a mistake and
LUM 78A 32
they think you're a durn fool. And ..... (garbled). In this
kind of a context that we try and describe this range of be-
havior in terms of the central tendencies. Uh, on the other
point I'd be honored to be invited to your seminar.
: May I say that it offends me somewhat to be standing hup4 I
take a philosophy never stand when you can sit down; never sit
down when you can lie down! I would much rather be sitting
down and I would much rather be having you .. talking. But let
me say in fairness to the person who arranged this program.
I did not. I was simply an invited guest. This is simply one
thing that development of
the Indian people. One other thing I studied--of course,
occupational education. And I was asked to evaluate occupa-
tional education --in this case for whites. And when my research
was over I was invited to Washington and they made me stand
and tell what I found out. And I hope that's what I, what we're
doing here. We just, I'm just setting the tone of things
myself.
+L
: I, I just wanted to direct 4 question to you in a friendly
manner. t gAdJ' -A- &o Votf)- but I think thatA
tSa.. 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 you
know we've been a frustrated people. Some of our most brilliant
people, you know, guys who were frustrated so they went out and
had car wrecks and killed each other. We gotta start asking
LUM 78A 33
questions and we gotta, you know, get away from this ,C g .
type thing where if you're a so-called W-A-S-P that we can't Ar DA-
_: That's entirely different.
: I mean we gotta get away from that idea that we cant ask those
kind of questions, you know, i k r B a.A i-V
- : Right.
c: We had problems with it.
S I would like to ask a question of what happens after 4-
shortcomings that you might find ?
From our -ds.L we would certainly hope that, in fact the federal
government has required that we provide the information back
to you) as well as providing it to the federal agency that has
control of some of the programs) so there can be changes, posi-
tive changes made'where there are defects
: I feel basically in Baltimore that the work -aout correcting
some of the inequities in Baltimore needs to be done by the In-
dian people, by 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 I've made it available to a ot of the people
who helped make 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've remained in Baltimore. It wasn't
LUM 78A 34
just this study for one year, but I stayed there and continued
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 -ib the findings
of my study, but they want to do it themselves and I think
that's the way it ought to be done.
And 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 dissertation out of that and that's something that I
paid for and that's also something that you have given to
me. And for this there is a debt. The second part of the study
was, there was money in that one. That was part of the national
study of American Indian education. And I was-a,, one of I
think six center directors. And I had I think the highest
proportion of Indian employees of any of the centers. Every
single one of my interviewers was Indian. 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. The output from that
study went into a final report to Congress and to the President.
No 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
LUM 78A 35
information from that national study. And on a couple of
key issues it was influenced. And one of them was the way in
which Indian is defined. Because up until that time
pretty much when it came to fundingtan Indian was defined
as a member of the BIA rol+. On the new Indian Education
Act he's defined as "any group that the state recognizes as
an Indian" is eligible. Now this is a real crucial -v,4"
and it wouldn't have happened I don't think without the sup-
porting evidence from the national study of Indian education.
Some other changes that have happened in the county as a result
of that study ---I think there's a new awareness and emphasis
upon 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 ought to know something
about Indians. This isn't moving perhaps as fast 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 resource
for people down here, %4." and would like to be more of a
resource. But I think that best of all I'd like to be run off
'cause I got somebody who's more qualified and who's Indian
and they don't need me.
: Was Federal Indian policy part of your iny in your
study? I know the historical part is on tomorrow night, but
I just wondered if that, -... IS 4 people here
getting caught between Federal Indian policy and tate, and
LUM 78A 36
their reaction to it caused them to I guess, n 4ot of cases,
cause somewhat a disappointment in Indian leadership. I think
that's probably more of a than anything else from my
study of the .a ^ V^
Yeah. The,-wea issue never came up directly but was always
there. And I went through all sorts of flak on the national
-C---
study because twh the Lumbee didn't fit the mold. Without
Federal funding, without federall payments, your income was
higher than most Indians. Without federall BIA, schools your
education level was way above other Indians. You just didn't
behave like lot of the Indians in the United States should
behave. Even those in tri-racial stations you didn't, didn't
fit the pattern. And one of the big differences is other In-
dians in tri-racial situations tend to be in a tri-racial situa-
tion with whites, Spanish-Americans and Indians)and they're on
the bottom. And the Lumbees weren't. They were well into the
middle, and well into the upper-middle and even when you look
at their income it was, you know, edging toward the poverty
level, but their behavior was not. They were behaving like,
you know, 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 to church, even
when they didn't go. You know they just looked really good,
solid middle class people. And this just didn't fit in with
LUM 78A 37
most of the studies that we did. And so it was a continual
hassle in the studies to try and fit Lumbee data in to make
sense with other Indian data. So it was in this kind of con-
y text that the hassle took place for me.
S: I'd be interested in the, each one of you's opinion in your
endeavors -,A A4 L e'vd as you continue to study the
Indians--what was the reaction from, say, these whites who
are the power structure in the county as you went about doing
your study. Personal opinions as to what you felt they thought
you were here doing, and what kind of cooperation did you
see from these people, and I might know the sources if at
all possible, tgo 4'- a4 i 0C ke e
__: I've got that one first. I don't know just what you want.
Not that we did try to solicit the cooperation of every group
when we came in. And ... we found the Indians to be moT co-
operative.
S: I don't know what I can make of that oney-given your study!
S: No, we were, to be honest, we were apprehensive three or four
years ago when we 1-I. everything down to Robeson County.
A naive view that we would blast in there and get lots of
whites' interviews done. We'll have trouble with the Indians
and the blacks and we'll just have to do the best we can.
Well, we blasted in here and got one hundred per cent support
from the Indians, a high amount of support from the blacks,
and poor support from the whites.
LUM 78A 38
: I'm not sure that your question is particularly appropriate to
Baltimore, but I will answer it in a couple f 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, but my university connection really paved
the way, and my gray hair paved the way. You know, Indians
feel respect for older people. My gray hair was in no way a
hindrance. Maybe it kept me from some of the bar drinking
that is,
parties,/they wouldn't invited me, but otherwise, my reception
was very good, very friendly and there were only a few
who I felt didn't trust me after a while and I didn't impose my-
self too strongly on them. I will say about some of the out-
siders though and their s.thoughts)ou know there are ot of
... in this area of Baltimore most of the shopkeepers are
not Indian. There are a few Indians here, most of 'em are not
Indian. I did talk with shopkeepers just to get what they
knew about, what they felt about and ayot 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 by and large I don't really feel that they counted
very much as far as my being able to understand the Indians.
And I have made the point in my study and I think it would be
very good if the Indians were really to take over some of the
LUM 78A 39
stores in these, or really run some of the businesses there.
It would make a big difference in the area if the Indians ran
some of the businesses and so on from that area. Now I will
say about authorities in Baltimore though. 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 when pushed by police have pushed back. And it
gets to be a problem as far as the police are concerned. They
were really, I got to talk to a number of authorities again
just to look into the question of trouble with the law, and see
the extent to which some of these officials connected with
the law, what they knew about Indians and so on. I was really
surprised at one thing--ta) while everybody knew about Indians
they really, they really didn't know many Indians. They really
did not have much experience with Indians. I can remember a
conversation i 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 to put on probation in
1969. Of 313 cases, I remember the figure, there weri a ot
of Indians that he had altogether. That is, not many Indl^
the Indians are well-known. The authorities know them very
well. But not that many really get in trouble with the law.
But the administration generally is very interested in the
LUM 78A 40
Indians. I was amused at the opening meeting, the inaugural
of the Indian Center. The commissioner of police came to the
inaugural at the Indian Center and a number of other city
officials were there, too. So this is what I can tell you about
Baltimore anyhow.
- : In my work here in the county mostly I work with Indians and I
worked when you still had Indian schools. To do that I had to
clear and get permission from i Allen and he gave it.
And he gave it in good faith and did not in any way inhibit or
encumber my study. And I think this is an important thing
at least for me to remember. At a later date I sent some people
down to try and get some economic information frmt 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 they're pretty cooperative.
But if they see or think that it might harm them, that it might
not just build up the Indians but build up the Indians at the
white power structure's expense, then they're going to resist.
I think this has been 'heL basically the pattern that I have
observed. I think certainly the, if I'm allowed to mention
it, the civil rights hearings that you had last September
tended to reinforce this, this kind of a conclusion. This,
where it's, if it doesn't matter, they're more than willing
LUM 78A 41
to cooperate; if it'll do some good but not cost them anything,
sure, they'll cooperate. But where they perceive it as a threat
to their position then the cooperation comes much harder. There
probably are some notable exceptions to this in the county
government though. This is, this is again one of these generali-
ties that I'm making that's describing that central part;
that there are, are people on other, on both extremes that are
quite different.
: I should say that most of my studies are of a historic nature
or have dealt with economic data most of which is a matter of
public record so that I could if I wished go in and demand to
see the titles or I could demand to see total assessments. I
would say that at the interpersonal level I have found
county officials to be most cautious and that understandably.
These are persons who m.mustz run for reelection; they don't
and be
want any frivolous / careless. statement/repeated outside 4CVk
>tCr AaL l tmrwith any group. And, and so I am an out-
sider to them. \,K -er grave and serious cleavages
between and among whites. And so, sometimes the sociologist
is not exactly a loved person by the power structure because
he represents potentially a threat.
,: Oh, one other thing I meant. I've never yet started a study
with the Lumbee Indians that I did not go through a two-three
hour period that I guess I could best describe as a Baptist
sermon about why I shouldn't be doing what I want to do.
LUM 78A 43
Usually quite well thought out and quite justified. But when
that is through and if I still want to do it and if they
agree to do it, boy, you've got somebody behind you 100T. This
has been, you know ... I mean they're really behind you, and
really going to help you. This is, they think may be a charac-
teristic thing tezh
S: I was just wanting to ask a question about a group of Indians,
why they just cluster, you know, like pa Av -
semethbag My experience 'cause this is my home, I was
brought up here, what brings about, what causes the Indians to
cluster like that you know? Don't you think that something
would cause them to cluster like that? io, come
up 'U1> St iot We ought not to be in that to start
lWaec \eafvl.e-e
with. This is what I had-in-mind. Why would, why would we want
to cluster together like that. Don't you think we was barred,
that the bars were put up on us that -e gh us to have to be
Wike that?
_: Oh, yeah, you've had ...well, what you're saying is wb, why
have the Indians sort of stayed in their group?
Q: Yeah, that's .
-: Well, you've had some legal bars on miscegenation, you had
economic bars. I think you maybe have also had a deep love
for the land. I mean, T.hes there's a thing-a-+thing about
being here and being in the land that's, that's special ...
>: ... that's what we're trying to tear down now. Si o\r Lis
LUM 78A
44
keeping thatwa 1, Voce
i \ t1 lt ^ t' Z l> y hometown,
\ ___ __ I remember I' m from my hometown,
I remember, I didn't know wvoe- it was, he came from Balti-
more. He didn't come there and get with the >e4 Af T nY
ths 'A Yor.Y te_ He got somebody there to
write 6e wasn't jou might say he was Igd ja out on the
street somewhere. This is where a ot of people get their
information ht type of people. Then they begin to write
about the Indians.
: I remember that.
gi: I think, I think you need to watch this. He came to me at UA-cf,
this man came from Baltimore. He didn't get what I call 4 ke. p
-abva. our Indian people. He got what I cal; you know, i M
_: Yeah, and I think as a behavioral scientist it's important to get
that ";C.. .But if you're going to be honest about your
work you get the whole A.h4
Q: Yeah.
: You try and describe where most plaple are. Maybe you say, you
know if you say "most 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: I might say, and get this I'm proud of myself. J LtrT WSpt-AL
1964
45
LUM 78A
I walked in Lumberton. I had on a white shirt, sleeves rolled
up, clean pants. This is what we are living with, what we
want to get rid of. I think all we Indians want ie is
the power structure to open the way, recognize (_ _
we are moving Joru 'rC I don't know 4ady
ow to- LL *g to you, but I know, you know, how to
put it
- : Yeah.
Q: I have
That's why we're
poor. We want the power machine to open up to us. Let us have
the same opportunities the white race has. I, I'd like to
walk down the streets and be just like another man. But we
haven't had that privilege. I Aad 8eat up there
at Lumberton, 1964, a A a e A a c4w L p eray -
CO coc^We 1 cI '11 W (Qf CMLUM '4eL L4 slA C"/
Lit"e fJ A IM-l fI$W LAn^ At oQ j / j i 7
But this is something we've had to come up to. I had a seat
up there and I called for an ice cream sundae, young white
girl 4k. V she act like she didn't hear me. Another white
man sat up there on his stool beside of me, he called for a
Coke. She waited on him. I said, "Lady, I called for an ice
cream sundae." She say;. "You'll have to get down and come
around here." I said, "What do you mean/9 A pt2 4 \i
She said, "we don't serve Indians across the counter."
46
LUM 78A
I said, "Well, if my money's 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 manager?" She said, "Would
you like to speak to him?" I said I would. He wouldn't
come out) you know. who I was
nice business and so feath. I
said I have a seat. I said, then I called for an ice cream
sundae and I was refused to be served. And so I told ?him om
... two men came in. I
And so they said ... 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
And I spoke to 'em ...
END SIDE 2, Tape.
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