They were here before the first Europeans landed on these shores over half a millennium ago. Records suggest they typically welcomed the newcomers, even helped the Pilgrims survive that first winter and gain a foothold in this ‘New World.’ Yet Native Americans of the some 500 different tribes that called North America home prior to colonization were thereafter consistently dehumanized, marginalized and forced from their lands, if not warred against and pushed to the very brink.
Joining host Peter Bermudes for a special two-part conversation about the Native American experience is Professor Malinda Maynor Lowery, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as the director of the Center for the Study of the American South.
In the first episode, the two discuss the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina in particular, the largest American Indian tribe east of the Mississippi, and of which Professor Maynor Lowery is a member. In episode two, they broaden their focus—to think about Native Americans more generally, explore the ways in which our past finds expression through the present, and imagine a path into our children’s future guided by one of this country’s founding principles—equality.
