Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation - Hardcover

Lowery, Malinda Maynor

4.16

63 ratings by Goodreads

9780807833681: Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807833681 ISBN 13: 9780807833681

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

With more than 50,000 enrolled members, North Carolina's Lumbee Indians are the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi River. Malinda Maynor Lowery, a Lumbee herself, describes how, between Reconstruction and the 1950s, the Lumbee crafted and maintained a distinct identity in an era defined by racial segregation in the South and paternalistic policies for Indians throughout the nation. They did so against the backdrop of some of the central issues in American history, including race, class, politics, and citizenship.

Lowery argues that "Indian" is a dynamic identity that, for outsiders, sometimes hinged on the presence of "Indian blood" (for federal New Deal policy makers) and sometimes on the absence of "black blood" (for southern white segregationists). Lumbee people themselves have constructed their identity in layers that tie together kin and place, race and class, tribe and nation; however, Indians have not always agreed on how to weave this fabric into a whole. Using photographs, letters, genealogy, federal and state records, and first-person family history, Lowery narrates this compelling conversation between insiders and outsiders, demonstrating how the Lumbee People challenged the boundaries of Indian, southern, and American identities.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Book Description:

"This is the first book to construct a full, layered sense of who the Lumbees are--and how they became who they are--as a Native American community. Lowery demonstrates that the core characteristics of kinship, reciprocity, and relationship to land have persisted in Lumbee identity, even as Lumbees--in dialogue with outsiders--enfolded new elements into their collective sense of self. Lowery's cogent explanation of the choices Lumbees made to accept the racial logic of Jim Crow in order to strive for community independence is nuanced, sensitive, and convincing. Her book will be a major contribution to American Indian, southern, and African American historical studies."--Tiya Miles, University of Michigan

About the Author:

Malinda Maynor Lowery (Lumbee) is an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a native of Robeson County, North Carolina.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.