Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

U. S. Senator Richard Burr, who represents North Carolina, published an opinion piece on June 19, 2019, in the Charlotte Observer which was reprinted, with permission, in the Robesonian (see the link, below). Senator Burr’s opinion piece outlines, with specific details and examples, ways in which North Carolina’s Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has used “aggressive tactics” to thward full federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe and also to forestall land acquisition by the Catawba Tribe that could be used for Indian gaming. Burr writes that “. . . the Cherokee have long lobbied against Lumbee recognition because they view it as a threat to their federal benefits and gaming business.”

Principal Chief Richard Sneed of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians wrote, at the invitation of the Robesonian, a response to Senator Burr’s opinion piece (see the link, below). Principal Chief Sneed asserts that the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has long opposed full federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe because the Lumbee have, over the years, pointed to the Cherokee and at least three other tribes as the historic tribes from which they are descended; because they “have tried to appropriate our Cherokee culture and identity”; and because the Lumbee should seek full federal recognition solely through the Department of Interior’s federal acknowledgment process, not through Congressional bills, such as the most recent one reintroduced by Senator Burr [on May 4, 2017].

The article contains comments on the opinion pieces from the Lumbee Tribal Chairman, Harvey Godwin; from the Chairman of the Lumbee Tribe’s Federal Recognition Committee, Jarrod Lowery; and from the Chairman of the Lumbee Tribal Council’s Education, Culture and Public Relations Committee, Frank Cooper.