Community Class Series: Henry Berry Lowrie, Lumbee Legend

Presenters: Nancy Strickland Fields, Museum of the Southeast American Indian; Dr. Lawrence T. Locklear, University of North Carolina at Pembroke; and Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, Emory University

Viewed by some as a hero and by others as a criminal, Henry Berry Lowrie was a legend even before he disappeared in the swamps of Robeson County in 1872. A member of the Lumbee Tribe, Lowrie led a resistance against the Confederacy during the American Civil War and later opposed the postwar Democratic power structure. The attempts to capture Lowrie and his multiracial gang became known as the Lowrie War. Many North Carolinians consider Lowrie a pioneer in the fight for civil rights. In this session of Community Class, a series for educators, students, and community members at large, a panel of scholars will provide insight into a world in which Lowrie and his gang emerged, as well as examine their legacy in terms of the ongoing fight for social and political justice.

Fields is a member of the Lumbee Tribe and the director and curator of the Museum of the Southeast American Indian at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Previously she worked at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian and the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum. Locklear is the director of the Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity and adjunct associate professor of American Indian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. A member of the Lumbee Tribe, he coauthored Hail to UNCP! A 125-Year History of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. A member of the Lumbee Tribe, Lowery has focused much of her work on questions of Native culture, identity, and migration. She is the Cahoon Family Professor in American History in Emory College of Arts and Sciences. The historian and documentary film producer was previously a history professor and director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.