In 1958, crosses were burned on the front lawns of two Lumbee families in Robeson County. The Ku Klux Klan acknowledged responsibility for the act, signaling its revival in popularity in the Southeast. In the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board decision, reactionary groups like the Klan insisted on re-establishing white hegemony. The two Lumbee families whom the Klan attacked were on the forefront of desegregation, having recently moved into a white neighborhood. Following the cross-burnings, the KKK announced that it would hold a rally in Robeson County to "put those Indians in their place." After not being able to rent a site in Pembroke, the KKK were successful in renting a field ten miles to the west, near the town of Maxton.
Word of the proposed rally spread among the community it was meant to terrify. On the evening of January 18th, the assembled group of KKK were outnumbered by heavily armed Lumbees. While guns were fired, any potential for serious injury was quashed with the arrival of the highway patrol. The badly frightened members of the KKK were escorted out of Robeson amidst the jeers of victorious Lumbees (Dial 1993:96).
With the Klan's rousting from Robeson County, Lumbees devoted even more energy to solidifying our socio-political status as Indians and as citizens of Robeson County. Again, this determination steeped in practical considerations has resulted in an ever-increasing number of Lumbees attaining public office, from the local to the state level. Alongside a concerted effort toward controlling the political apparatus of Robeson, Lumbees actively sought to determine our community's economic future. In 1971, the Lumbee chartered the first Indian-owned and -run bank in the United States. More than eighty percent of its stockholders are Lumbees (Dial and Eliades 1996:171).
In the present decade, the Lumbee Bank's business is no longer confined within the bounds of Robeson County or even North Carolina. While continuing to serve the needs of the local Lumbee community, the Lumbee Bank has numerous dealings with U.S. corporations and trans-national conglomerates (Dial and Eliades 1996:172). In a world of increasing globalization, and contrary to the popular notion of Native lands slipping out of Native control (Churchill 1997), Lumbees are renegotiating their position along an ever-fluid frontier that is characterized by cross-cultural compromise and change. Robeson's frontier has spilled beyond the swamps that mark and bind its inhabitants to one another and to its landscape through institutions like the Lumbee Bank and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. This latest exchange does not threaten Lumbee identity; it further strengthens the already diverse cultural base on which our identity is formed.