- More than 55,000 Lumbee called North Carolina home.

Now, a new push in Washington could change their future.

We're digging into what's at stake and why it matters to North Carolina.

This is State Lines.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBSNC.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to a State Line special.

I'm David Hurst.

In 1956, Congress passed a law identifying the Lumbee by name, but that same legislation said they would not be eligible for federal tribal services.

Today, the Lumbee remain without full federal recognition.

More than 55,000 Lumbee people live in and around Robeson County, but without federal recognition, the tribe cannot access the Indian Health Service or many of the programs available to other native nations.

Tribal leaders say that has real consequences.

- Do not let us bury another Lumbee or lose another ally in this fight for justice.

Congress must move to ensure the Lumbee Indians are no longer second-class natives in our own land.

- The U.S.

House passed legislation that would grant the Lumbee full recognition.

That provision was included in this year's National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate is expected to vote on soon.

But some tribes oppose granting the Lumbee recognition through Congress.

Their concern, they say, is not about the Lumbee as individuals, but about sovereignty, precedent, and documentation standards.

Tribes such as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians argue recognition must follow a rigorous process to protect the integrity of tribal nationhood.

- I wanna state this plainly and respectfully.

There's no tribal language, there's no treaty relationships, no continuous tribal government, no documented lineage to a historical tribe.

We do not fear another tribe.

I wanna make that clear.

We fear falsehood becoming federal law.

- So how does America decide who is a tribe?

What would recognition change for Lumbee families?

And why do tribal nations disagree on the path forward?

In this special, we explore those questions with three Lumbee voices offering different perspectives on history, identity, and what comes next.

Here with me in studio, Amber Holland, an attorney specializing in federal Indian law, Dr.

Lawrence Locklear, Director of Southeast American Indian Studies at UNC Pembroke, and Jesalyn Keziah, the Executive Director of Triangle Native American Society.

Welcome to you all.

- Welcome.

- Thank you.

- Amber, let's start with you.

Let's talk about federal recognition.

Let's start at the basics.

What does it do, and what does it do for a tribe?

- Federal recognition is a political process where one sovereign, the United States government, recognizes the sovereignty of a tribe.

That process has evolved from the Constitution where the United States was treating with tribes, and that treaty process ended in 1871.

And today, it looks like what we're seeing in Congress now, and that is the congressional route that Lumbee are pursuing.

And then there's also an administrative process to obtain federal recognition through the Department of Interior's Office of Federal Acknowledgement.

- Take me back to 1956.

Why did Congress act the way that they did in terms of recognizing the Lumbee by name, but not giving them full recognition?

- Yeah, I think one thing to understand is that from the 1940s to the 1960s, the federal government was trying to get out of the Indian business.

It was called the Indian Termination Policy.

And so what Congress was trying to do was end those trust relationships with tribes and more forcefully assimilate Indian people into mainstream society.

And so they understood that with the Lumbee Bill, by recognizing Lumbee people, that bill also at the same time denied access to federal services for the Lumbee people.

And so that was just a part of that Indian Termination Policy that was going on at the time.

- And Jesalyn, you work with Native American families across the Triangle.

For the Lumbee specifically, how does that impact them day to day that they don't have access to some of these services?

- Yeah, well, I'll say, you know, we know that North Carolina has the largest Native population east of the Mississippi River.

And here in the Triangle, we have a really large Native population because so many of us moved here for school or for work, those types of opportunities.

So Triangle Native American Society serves as that home away from home and urban Indian organization that can help fill in some of the gaps.

We do have a large Lumbee population just because we are the largest tribe in the state and east of the Mississippi River.

But we actually represent folks from 25 different tribal affiliations.

So we do have folks from state recognized and federally recognized tribes.

Those are all political designations through this relationship with the US.

Our identity is inherent.

And we also say that the sovereignty is inherent.

It's not something that's given from the government.

However, there are a lot of political, right, policy access issues that can come along with recognition.

So for example, so many of our people may not have access to the services that are provided by tribal governments back home, whether it's limited to service area, or may not be able to access other programs that we could have access to for members once we become federally recognized.

- And is healthcare the biggest piece there, or obviously other things at play, but is healthcare one of the biggest pieces?

- Healthcare is definitely a really big piece.

I would say that's something that gets a lot of conversation and there's certainly a lot of interest.

We know that there's huge health disparities among our native population due to lack of access and the ways that our community have been affected through the 500 years that we've been dealing with colonization here in North Carolina.

And that's an interesting story too, where here in North Carolina, we are ground zero, right, where the first English child was born here on Roanoke Island, right, Virginia Dare.

And so even between Eastern North Carolina and Western North Carolina, there's hundreds of years different of history and contact, forced assimilation, and the wounds that can come from colonization.

So when we talk about issues of documentation, when we talk about issues of language, there's huge historical impact that we're talking about there.

- And as our guests have alluded to, there are those two paths toward being federally recognized.

There's the one through Congress, as well as the one through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, that one, a bit of a more extensive documentation progress.

So a lot of the efforts are on Congress right now.

At a recent Senate hearing, several tribal leaders argued the Lumbee should take the administrative route instead of a legislation one.

- If Congress replaces documented history with political momentum, if identity becomes a matter of assertion rather than continuity, then this body will not be recognizing tribes, it will be manufacturing them.

- Amber, you heard Chief Barnes say, talk about Congress manufacturing tribes.

What's your response to that?

- I go back to the Constitution.

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to recognize what sovereigns it chooses to recognize.

This is a political relationship, but right now, in 2025, the Senate Committee of Indian Affairs, under their constitutional authority, have standards.

They're not manufacturing tribes.

They are deciding to have a political relationship with sovereigns that already exist.

- Lawrence, what history and continuity do the Lumbee point to in terms of their argument for full recognition?

- I think when you look at Lumbee history, you need to start first with the archeological history of Robeson County.

That history states that Robeson County has been continuously occupied for 10,000 plus years by Native peoples.

That includes the colonial period in the 18th century when with Native burials, there were elements of trade, trade like the blue Venetian beads that were found in those sites.

You look at the archeological record, and then during the 18th century, historian James Merrill said that Carolina Indians are some of the least documented Indians in the United States.

There's not that many records that relate to Lumbee people.

We begin, there's a few instances in the 1750s and later where Lumbee people appear, and then we show up in the 1790 and later census records.

There's not that much to be written about us in the 18th century.

There's not that many documents available.

That's a challenge when you're studying Lumbee history because you don't have that black and white written record because you gotta understand, like Jesalyn was saying, Native peoples, when Europeans came, they brought with them disease, warfare, and slavery, and that decimated 90% of the Native people that were here.

Remnants of those tribes started seeking out other tribes, and they were traveling in small kinship groups.

You didn't see a large mass of people moving at one time.

When you look at the Lumbee community and particularly where we're located, you had families that were moving in over multiple decades.

You're not gonna find this one document that states explicitly that these are the ancestors of Lumbee people 'cause they were moving in in those small groups.

It's challenging with some of those records.

- Jesalyn, many make the argument that despite not having access to some of these federal services, the Lumbee people have a very rich culture and community and have really been able to thrive as a result, or in spite of.

What do you attribute that to?

- Yeah, well, I will tell you, I'm so proud of my people.

I love my people.

We all do.

Lumbee people are fierce in our protection of each other, of the land, of our customs and our ways.

I think even thinking about the lack of documentation, we're people of oral history.

I think of the oral history of my family who has been here since time immemorial, who talk about the ways that we came together and found protection in the swamps, in these deep areas where we were able to know the land enough to know where we could go and be safe, where we could find other families and come together in a way to protect what we have, protect our custom, protect our ways, go underground in some ways to keep something safe, and in some ways, hide in plain sight, in creating that homeland right there around the river and finding all of the ways that we can to practice our culture in ways that keep it safe and keep it documented.

We do that to this day.

And I think you see that also when you see the migration up, say from Robeson County to our urban Indian area up here, in the triangle where even though we move from Robeson County up here, we still retain identity.

We still retain that connection to culture.

We still retain that connection to family and find ways to practice culture even up here.

So to me, that's a long history of choosing each other, choosing safety and all the ways that we can find it.

And I'm so thankful for all of our folks who have been able to protect what they can over the years so that we can be so vibrant and thriving today.

- And there has been a long history as well of support for Lumbee recognition.

It even crosses party lines.

The U.S.

House recently passed recognition legislation with a strong bipartisan vote and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, he's made it a personal priority in the Senate.

- The Lumbee people have waited long enough.

They don't ask for special treatment, only fair treatment.

They've earned and deserve full federal recognition.

And to my friends and colleagues on this committee, I hope you understand just how important this is, not only to the Lumbee tribe and the people of North Carolina, but to me personally.

- So Amber, a lot of this debate has been over money as well.

Like with most issues, the Congressional Budget Office estimates this would cost about $350 million over 10 years.

Should cost be a factor in this conversation?

- Absolutely not.

The political relationship between tribes and the federal government is one to be made between those individual tribes and the government.

And the trust and treaty responsibility that the government has to tribes should be upheld regardless of how much it costs.

Federal Indian programs have been historically underfunded and there have been recent efforts to increase those funds.

There have been efforts to secure advanced appropriations for federal services for Indians.

But the bottom line is that responsibility exists regardless of how many individual Indians there are and how many tribes are recognized.

- Jesalyn, while on the topic of money, do you have an idea of what kind of economic impact something like this would have on the Robeson County area?

- Well, I would defer to my folks back in Robeson County for that local impact.

But what I will say is it's gonna have a huge economic impact just in terms of access to potential services, programs that folks can be a part of.

So many of our people are entrepreneurs, are small business owners.

That's come out of necessity.

We've, you know, being outside of the dominant society for so long, we've had to find a way to provide for our families on our own, right?

So you see that strong history of entrepreneurship and small business ownership and being able to access services that are set aside for native people is gonna bring a huge foundation that can lift up our whole community, truly.

- And I agree, I'll add to that.

I think when you look at the benefits for healthcare, education, and those would be tremendous for our county.

Robeson County is one of the poorest counties in the state of North Carolina, which makes it one of the poorest in the nation.

And so if you're looking at ways to break that cycle, I think education is gonna be key to that.

And what I mean by benefits for education is that many of our students would have opportunities for scholarships that are right now currently limited to fully federally recognized tribes.

And so I think that would give our students opportunities to pursue careers in areas that they didn't have opportunities before just because of that additional funding.

- What other, you know, if this legislation passes, what other kind of immediate impacts would the folks down there see?

- I think the potential in the future to have an Indian Health Services Clinic, I think would have a huge impact.

Many of our Lumbee people just can't afford health insurance.

And so you see it on a regular basis with healthcare issues, healthcare disparities in our county.

So I think that would be a game changer.

I know we use that term a lot, but when you're talking about Robeson County and the needs in our area, that would be huge.

I think also in terms of entrepreneurial spirit, developing businesses, Lumbee people are very resilient, very crafty, very creative.

And so I think giving them that extra opportunity, I think would, again, use that term game changer.

I think it would have a huge impact on our community.

- I know the president has been down there a couple times to campaign, to show his support behind the Lumbee people.

Actually just days into his second term, President Trump signed a directive asking the Department of Interior to look for ways to resolve their Lumbee status, whether that be through legislation or any other option available.

After reviewing it, Interior came back with a clear conclusion.

They said the only way to deliver full recognition to the Lumbee is for Congress to pass a new law.

So for Lumbee leaders, all eyes remain on Capitol Hill.

- I'm confident that this year, Congress will finally amend this law, this flawed law, and extend the full services benefits that Lumbee deserve.

A tribe's legal status should be clear, concise, and unambiguous.

And the Lumbee Fairness Act ensures this for our tribe.

- Amber, we've seen presidents intervene before.

What can an executive order actually do here, or is it ultimately up to Congress?

- Well, the executive order asks for the Department of Interior to examine the Lumbee situation, and they did do that.

And the Solicitor's Office produced a letter several months ago, and the letter did conclude that the tribe should seek recognition through Congress, and essentially just change the language that was passed in 1956.

So the executive order itself did not extend, or did it, and it did not intend to extend any sort of recognition, but to formally address what has happened and look at potential pathways for the tribe.

- And Lawrence, despite the lack of federal recognition, the state does recognize the Lumbee people.

What are some of the benefits for having that state recognition?

- I think the benefit is, we talked earlier about that government-to-government relationship, direct relationship with the state government.

I think it creates opportunities for us, again, getting back to entrepreneurship activities, access to grants, educational opportunities.

I think those are all benefits that definitely, that we have with that state recognition.

- Jesalyn, I imagine other tribes are watching this process closely.

What kind of precedent would this potentially set if the Lumbee are ultimately awarded federal recognition?

- Yeah, well, I think really what we're talking about here is righting a wrong, righting a wrong that happened in the '50s, which we know was during the era of termination, one of the most harrowed times between the relationship of United States government and our Indian nations.

It's also my understanding that going through OFA can't override that language that's written, and I'm looking at Amber right now here, right?

Because I think there's so much, when I look, when I read news articles that are coming out, when I look at what's being published about the situation, there's so much misinformation, and federal Indian law is such a specialized area that what we're talking about here is a really unique situation.

So it's literally an act of Congress to amend this one line that yes, recognizes us, we are recognized in name only, and then in the next line, denied access to these same services that come along.

So to me, that's just a hallmark and a holdover of a bygone time of that era of termination, right?

And we're in a new day where we understand that that little one line of legislation has been holding us back in a fight that we've been fighting since the 1800s, right?

And it just happened to be the chance that once that legislation went through, we were during this era of termination, and so that language was put in here.

So I don't think it's setting a precedent for how other processes are handled as much as it is righting a wrong that's been on the books for 60, 70 years.

- And the precedent has already been set.

Tribes have been recognized through the acts of Congress for decades.

And most recently in 2019, as part of the NDAA that year, the Little Shell Chippewa in Montana were recognized in similar fashion to the effort now before Congress.

So the precedent has been set, and Lumbee are following that, but Lumbee's situation is pretty unique.

Aside from the Isleta del Sur Pueblo in Texas, no other tribe is facing these similar ramifications from the termination era.

So what happens with Lumbee today and tomorrow is going to be, this month, next year, is going to be unique to Lumbee, and Lumbee are unique.

So we embrace our history, we embrace our pathway here.

It wasn't fair, but I'm looking forward to hopefully a resolution of this injustice.

- I was gonna add, when you talk about precedent too, there were, I think, more than 100 tribes that were terminated during the termination era, and so many of those tribes have sued and regained their trust relationship with the federal government.

So when you talk about precedent, you've already seen other tribes do what Lumbee are fighting to do right now by striking that language and securing that trust relationship with the federal government.

- If I can also add, it's my understanding that some of the tribes that are speaking out against Lumbee going through the congressional route also receive their recognition through the congressional route, right?

So I think in that case, we have to zoom out a little bit and think about what is the larger conversation going on here and fights over money, right?

Which in my mind comes back to this idea of scarcity mode, this idea that there's a pie, and if we get a slice of the pie, that someone else gets less slice.

That's not how it happens, right?

That's not how the federal appropriations work.

So I think that's an important piece of context we need to be thinking about.

- Well, Chairman Lowry said he hopes, a couple weeks ago at the congressional hearing, he says he hopes that's the last time he'll have to testify before Congress.

So we'll see, all eyes on Capitol Hill.

Thank you all for joining us and for your unique perspectives.

Appreciate you guys being here.

- Thank you.

- Yes.

- Thank you so much for having us.

- And speaking of Capitol Hill, joining me now from Washington, D.C., is Congressman David Rauzer.

His district includes parts of Robeson County, where of course most of the Lumbee population lives.

He's also a co-sponsor of the Lumbee Fairness Act.

Congressman, thanks for joining us today.

- Oh, great to be with you.

- So for your constituents in Robeson County, what would federal recognition mean?

- Well, federal recognition will mean everything to the Lumbee tribe.

They've been seeking federal recognition, quite honestly, since 1956, when they lost their federal recognition.

So this has been a long process, a very arduous process, and the Lumbee tribe is gonna have a great Christmas here in 2025, I can guarantee you.

It's very important to 'em.

- And yeah, take me behind the scenes just for a minute.

The Lumbee provision, that was included in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Why attach it to the defense bill rather than just pass it standalone?

- Well, we had passed a standalone bill recognizing the Lumbee tribe with full recognition a number of different times over a variety of different Congresses, including last Congress.

So we had the NDAA bill come before us, and that's a bill that is a must-pass bill.

It's a bill that comes before the Congress every year to authorize our defense programs.

There is a history, I might add, of federal recognition for other tribes being attached to the NDAA bill.

And so we viewed that as a viable option, and it worked.

We were able to get it through the House, and we're gonna get it through the Senate.

- Now, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians argue that this bypasses the Bureau of Indian Affairs process and may even set a dangerous precedent.

How do you respond to those sovereignty concerns?

- Well, the Lumbee Act of 1956 prevented the Lumbee tribe from even pursuing the administrative process.

And in fact, in 1989, the Solicitor's Office at the Department of the Interior ruled that the Lumbee Act was so clear and so plain spoken, the Lumbee Act of 1956, that the Lumbee tribe really was not eligible.

It did no good to go through the administrative process.

So that really was a red herring.

There was plenty of historical precedent.

In fact, the termination error, you had a lot of tribes that were discontinued.

The federal government discontinued any benefit or recognition for a number of tribes.

Those tribes had been reinstated through a congressional act and the same applied here with the Lumbees.

And so again, this has been a long time in the making.

A lot of hard work has gone into it.

I've introduced this bill a number of different times over the years, now in my sixth term in Congress.

And this is a great achievement for the Lumbee tribe, their leadership, and all those who have worked so hard to make this recognition possible.

- And also in support, as you know, President Trump, he made this one of his campaign promises.

How much did the White House's engagement help move this through the House?

- Oh, it was instrumental.

Not necessarily so much in getting it through the House, but in terms of getting it through the United States Senate and getting it on the NDAA bill, where we could keep it in place through the conference negotiations.

The White House was very instrumental in that.

President Trump was very loyal, very strong in support of the Lumbee recognition, and it really paid off here at the end.

- So if the Senate passes this, which sounds like you're pretty optimistic, what does the implementation timeline look like?

What does federal recognition actually look like and how does that all take effect?

- Well, the tribe will be entitled to all the federal benefits associated with Indian tribes bestowed by the federal government, Indian Health Services, for example.

But really it also, and the most meaningful aspect of it is, they have sovereignty now.

They can do what they would like to do as a tribe, whereas before they were recognized, but they didn't have that ability.

So it really creates a lot of economic opportunity for them, which in that area of the state is sorely needed.

And again, this is a long time coming and a great accomplishment for everybody who's worked so hard on it.

- Robeson County, obviously one of the poorest counties in North Carolina.

To your point, help us understand a little bit more the economic impact that something like this would have on that region.

- Oh, you'll see a tremendous amount of economic development.

You'll see probably new businesses move in or created around the tribe.

And so I anticipate there'll be a significant economic boon for that area, which is so desperately needed.

- Well, Congressman Rauzer, thanks for your time and your perspective on this topic.

We appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us today.

Thank you.

- Well, it's great to be with you.

- And thank you at home for watching.

Email your thoughts and opinions to statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm David Hurst.

We'll see you next time.

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