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Jeanette W. Jones holds
the September 1957 issue of Ebony magazine, which features
the article Mystery People of Baltimore: Neither red,
nor black, nor white. Strange Indian tribe lives
in world of its own. She is pictured at center, with
her hand on her hip. Photo Sean Scheidt; author provided,
Author provided
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Following World War II, thousands of Lumbee
Indians migrated from their tribal homeland in rural North Carolina
to industrialized cities, including Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Seeking work and a better quality of life, they formed distinct
Lumbee communities. They brought their foods cornbread, collards,
pastry.
They brought their singing
and strong work ethic. They became business owners. They founded
churches and urban Indian Centers.
Their lives and contributions became part of the historical record
and cultural landscapes of these places, but over time, a complex
set of factors have resulted in the movement and displacement of
the people themselves.
We are Lumbee scholars Ashley
Minner from Baltimore and Jessica
Locklear from Philadelphia. We have mined local archives in
search of our forebears. Weve found news articles, photographs,
maps and even video footage documenting relatives and friends who
often have no idea they are represented in collections.
As safeguarders of history, institutional archives necessarily
have rules in place to govern access to their collections. Many
of the materials are also subject to copyright, and the rights are
owned by the creators of the materials or their employers. In other
words, a photographer or the company the photographer was working
for would own the rights to a specific photograph.
Faced with restrictions as to how the memories we found can be
accessed and shared, we ask: Who has the right to the archives?
What are our obligations both as tribal citizens and public-facing
researchers when we find our people in them?
Ashley Minner, Baltimore
When Lumbee Indians moved to Baltimore, they settled in an area
on the east side of town bridging the neighborhoods of Washington
Hill and Upper Fells Point. The blocks of brick row houses with
marble steps looked nothing like the rural home they left behind,
but as other ethnic communities had done before them, they made
this place their own.
In
2018, I hit the archives in earnest, anxious to corroborate
stories shared by my elders about the
reservation they had formed there in their youth.
They described a landscape intimately familiar to me, where places
I grew up the Baltimore
American Indian Center and South
Broadway Baptist Church are still open and operating.
But their stories were filled with names of businesses and people
I didnt know because this area has been continually transformed
since then.
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View of South Broadway
from the Baltimore American Indian Center. Photo by Colby
Ware for OSI Baltimore, 2014
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One of the first and richest sources of documentation I found was
the Baltimore
News American newspaper photo archive. There were forgotten
images of community leaders, legends and even relatives.
My immediate impulse was to share the photos via social media so
our people could enjoy them as well. To share them legally, I needed
permission from the Hearst Corporation, which owns the copyright,
which I eventually got, months later.
In the meantime, I ran into Hannah Locklear, another Lumbee woman
from Baltimore. She cried happy tears when I showed her one of the
archival images I had saved on my phone. There was her great-grandma,
Margie Chavis, young, standing on the stoop of the Baltimore American
Indian Center. Along with our memories, images from archives like
these are sometimes all that remain.
A fellow researcher alerted me to a September 1957 Ebony
magazine article Mystery People of Baltimore: Neither
red, nor black, nor white. Strange Indian tribe lives
in world of its own.
A grainy print copy is available at Baltimores Enoch Pratt
Free Library. I noticed right away that one of the featured photos
taken at a youth social dance and captioned Typical
Indian girl was my Aunt Jeanette. Just 14 years old,
she was neither interviewed nor told how her photo would be used.
With great celebration, the Ebony and Jet Magazine photo archives
were recently donated to the National
Museum of African American History and Culture and the Getty
Research Institute so they would be widely
accessible to researchers, scholars and the public. But
those archives arent publicly available yet.
Incredibly, a copy of the magazine itself was listed in the collections
of a London prop shop.
I bought it and brought it home to Aunt Jeanette.
She carefully opened the yellowed, oversized magazine and delightedly
found a teenage version of herself inside, along with photos of
other Lumbee young people, new on the Baltimore scene, playing at
youth centers, sitting on stoops, lounging in Patterson Park.
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Mystery People
of Baltimore spread, Ebony, 1957. Photo by Sean Scheidt
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Despite the hurtful context of the article, Ebony managed to capture
a special time for our community. These are some of the only images
we have of the reservation in its heyday.
Unfortunately, they are available only to those who can wait an
indeterminate period of time until theyre made publicly available,
and then navigate the bureaucracy of the institution where theyre
housed.
Jessica Locklear, Philadelphia
Unlike Baltimore, there was no reservation in Philadelphia.
Here, Lumbees settled in pockets across the city, yet found ways
to forge a sense of community. When I started my research, I doubted
there would be evidence of Philadelphias Lumbee community
in any archives. I was wrong.
While searching the archives of the Philadelphia
Inquirer newspaper, I found a story about a Lumbee man named
Thessely Campbell who was set to star in a 1984 PBS documentary.
Campbell moved from Fairmont, North Carolina, to Philadelphia in
1952 and found employment as a welder at the Budd
Company.
Obtaining a copy of this documentary was a lengthy process. The
closest available copy was at a university library over 320 miles
away. The Work Ive Done focuses on Campbells
retirement, but also documents Philadelphias Lumbee community,
including footage shot inside the Native
American Freewill Baptist Church, where Campbell was a minister.
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Screenshot showing the
Native American Freewill Baptist Church, where Campbell was
a minister. The Work Ive Done. Blue Ridge
Mountain Films, Directed by Kenneth Fink, 1984.
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In 2019, I conducted an oral
history interview with Campbells wife, Helen. She wanted
a DVD copy of the film to keep and share with family. It was at
this moment I asked: What is my obligation to pass along material
that is available to me, as a scholar, to those who may not be able
to access it otherwise?
I felt strongly a copy of this film belonged in the hands of the
family represented in it. Asserting a claim of fair use, I made
Ms. Helen a copy, and Im glad I did she passed away
a few months later.
More recently, I stumbled upon a digital
copy of the documentary made available by the Internet Archive,
a nonprofit dedicated to universal access of archival materials.
However, accessible does not always mean findable.
In sifting through various archival records, I occasionally find
photos of familiar faces, which I try to share with those individuals
or families. Most people are tickled to find they are in the archives,
and most enjoy being able to view and share images they would not
have found themselves.
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Rev. Thessely Campbell
and Helen Campbell. Photo courtesy of Maria Luisa Rios.
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Accountability in two directions
The
renowned Lumbee scholar Malinda Maynor Lowery writes of being
bound by two sets of ethics that overlap heavily: A Lumbees
obligation demands accountability to the people who have lived history,
and a historians responsibility demands accountability to
the widest possible sources.
As tribal citizens and scholars doing public-facing work, we consider
ourselves similarly bound. We search for our people
far and wide. When we find them in archives, we feel obligated to
bring them home to their families.
Knowing our people will not access archives as we do, through libraries,
universities and museum collections, we meet them where they are
in their homes, out in the world, and on social media.
Repatriating the archives isnt always about removing materials
from institutional care. Its making sure the people whose
lives and cultures are represented in collections know they are
there, and ensuring they have the ability to view and share these
materials as they see fit. When materials are returned to their
communities of origin, they become reactivated.
If we have the ability to give a woman or a whole community
the opportunity to disarm a hurtful encounter of their youth,
and to allow public affirmation of their beauty and true history,
we will. If we can return a walking, talking, preaching, singing
father, husband and minister to his people, we will.
We are dedicated to sharing the rich histories of former Lumbee
neighborhoods with present generations. Bringing archival materials
directly to our people presents opportunities to interact with our
shared past and that informs our future.
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