Oral history interview with Barry Nakell, October 1, 2003

This interview offers a look at the economically and politically disenfranchised Lumbee Indians' efforts to assert themselves in Robeson County and to some extent, white North Carolinians' efforts to sabotage that effort. Barry Nakell, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, remembers traveling to Robeson County in the mid-1970s to help the Lumbee Indians--and a splinter group, the Tuscarora--save a historic building and strike down so-called double voting. Double voting allowed city residents in Robeson County to vote for both city and county school board, giving city elites unusual control over county schools, where most Native American children studied. Nakell succeeded in defeating the system before a U.S. Circuit Court. He believes that once Native Americans took more control over their education system, their most prominent citizens were freed to agitate for more rights and protections. Nakell's intervention sparked an interest in legal solutions to civil rights issues, and a steady stream of Lumbee Indians began earning degrees at UNC law school so they could return home and advocate for other Native Americans.