By Nicole De Zabala
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Sitting on a couch at her home in Pembroke, North Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill senior Peyton Brooks anxiously watched C-SPAN with her family, waiting for a moment that had consumed generations of members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.
“I had it literally going on the entire – almost majority of [winter] break,” she said, recalling the monumental night in December 2025.
Then, finally, the bill came up.
“It wasn’t like, you know, immediate bombs went off, or fireworks went off or anything. It was just like, ‘Oh my goodness,’” Brooks emphasized.
For the Brooks family, the shock was not only that it finally happened. It was how simple it looked in the moment. How one sentence was all it took to end centuries of fighting and uncertainty.
“Over 150 years – probably pushing 200 years – of fighting and advocating and protesting for something that impacts our people so much, and just to sit there and witness them literally just being like, ‘Okay we agree,’ it was as simple as that,” she said. “And just the way that I looked at my dad and was like, ‘That was it? That’s all it took?’”
Especially because that “yes” carried the weight of more than a century.
On Dec. 18, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which included the Lumbee Fairness Act and granted full federal recognition to the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.
Then on Jan. 30, 2026, the Department of the Interior added the Lumbee Tribe to the official list of federally recognized tribes, formalizing a government-to-government relationship with the United States.
This moment was a milestone that marked a breath of relief for the largest tribe in North Carolina, the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River, and a community of over 55,000 registered members.
For outsiders, the term “federal recognition” can sound like a highly political, administrative term.
But for the Lumbees, it means something much more intimate and personal. It means validation without surrender, opportunities without forgetting, and the possibility that for the first time in more than 150 years, the next generation might not have to fight the same battles their ancestors did.
Samantha Chavis, a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill, felt that and more in Washington before the decision was finalized. She was coincidentally on a trip to D.C. while the case was unfolding and unexpectedly found herself at a restaurant surrounded by Native Americans working on the bill.
“To feel the support of other Native people was really cool,” she said. “And then seeing a lot of other youth in my community there in D.C. and being a part of it – making a difference – felt really inspiring to me.”
When the news of the bill passing finally broke, she described celebrating with her family and friends: “It made me feel very proud, and it made me feel a lot of feelings that I’ve felt my entire life growing up in the community feel validated.”
That word right there – validated – came up again and again, though not in the way you might assume.
Marcus Collins, the associate provost for academic and community engagement and a Lumbee leader at UNC-Chapel Hill, was careful to explain that recognition did not create Lumbee identity.
“We have always known who we are,” he said. “We have always known our stories, our history, and who we are as Lumbee people.”
What federal recognition does, he emphasized, is force the government to “acknowledg[e] its role and [do] what’s right.”
And that distinction matters. Recognition is not proof that the Lumbee suddenly are Native American. They consider it a long overdue admission that they were never anything else.
The full impact and scale of this statement stems from that reality being challenged from multiple directions for decades. Chavis described the tribe facing “systematic barriers” and a federal process that often seemed designed to exclude them.
“The government didn’t consider us Native American enough,” she said.
This reflected a bigger problem that did not come just from paperwork – it came with the weight of policies, prejudices, and expectations that did not reflect Lumbee history.
Page Freeman, the program coordinator for community engagement at the UNC American Indian Center, sees that misunderstanding as part of a larger national blind spot.
From her perspective, one reason recognition took so long was because of “a lack of knowledge surrounding East Coast tribes.”
Too many people, she said, assume Native history belongs elsewhere – out West, in another century, among other tribes. But she described Lumbee people as having been “very prevalent” in North Carolina for centuries.
“That didn’t stop our ancestors from continuing to fight until this current generation is able to see that come to fruition,” she added.
Throughout every conversation, recognition was described not only as the end of a struggle, but as the start of a new responsibility: deciding what comes next.
Collins emphasized that federal recognition is often misunderstood as an action in which benefits are delivered instantly. He said some might think “boom, the next day that’s in place, and that is not the case.”
Instead, he described it as a foundation: a government-to-government relationship that opens doors for the tribe to build on its own terms. Education and healthcare may expand, economic development may become possible, but implementation will take time.
However, in the three months since the official recognition, change has already become visible. Collins described one immediate example: a Lumbee student who was suddenly eligible for a scholarship available only to members of federally recognized tribes.
“She got it simply overnight by being federally recognized,” he said.
For Chavis, those newfound possibilities are tied to memories of what she was missing in her childhood.
“Growing up, I remember not having proper books, teachers having such a quick turnaround, and having pretty much been taught by substitutes,” she said.
What recognition means to her is not just symbolic, it is a tangible representation of the off-chance that Lumbee children might finally have the classroom support, encouragement, and stability they deserve.
For Brooks, as for Chavis, that educational angle is deeply personal.
She connected that special night in December to her paternal grandmother’s advocacy for Native education and to the history of segregation in Robeson County. She spoke of Lumbee children being pushed out of county schools to boarding schools and of students being deprived of resources long after these policies were supposed to be over.
“When I graduated from our public school system in 2022,” she said. “They did a statistical study on how prepared our graduating class was for college, and on the scale of 1-10, our college preparedness was a 2 because of our lack of resources.”
That is why recognition, to her, is not abstract.
“A lot of it comes from financial support, but our county needs more help and our people need more help in that area,” she added. “So I’m really excited to see what kind of things come about from that.”
Brooks also described larger Lumbee hopes for this opportunity to improve healthcare, especially for elders. But even while looking ahead, she was adamant that the Lumbee people were never just waiting passively for someone else to save them.
“Our people have continued to persevere and to, honestly, thrive despite the lack of support from our government,” she emphasized. “And I think that’s one of the things that now that we do have the support, we’re like, ‘Wow, what much more can we do?’”
Freeman posed a similar question, but from a place of pride. “Something that I love about being Lumbee is that we have always – because of not being federally recognized – found a way to still get those resources and those revenues just in different ways.”
To her and to the rest of their community, just like federal recognition does not suddenly create identity, it also does not suddenly create capability. It’s simply about having the support to grow further.
“It’s a bright future,” Freeman said. “It’s exciting.”
Still, the path ahead is not just material; it is also cultural.
And that cultural future is rooted in traditions like Lumbee Homecoming, one of the community’s greatest sources of pride.
Homecoming is the annual July gathering when Lumbee people come back to Pembroke and all over Robeson County from across the country. Brooks called it “a massive festival” with food, powwows, dancing, tribal ambassador elections, but more than anything, she said, “it’s honestly just a great time for us to come and be together.”
“I always say when the Fourth of July comes around, I’m never celebrating America’s independence,” Freeman also said, laughing. “I’m celebrating Lumbee Homecoming – it’s not one or the other, it’s just Lumbee Homecoming.”
Similarly, Collins added: “I think with anything, any tradition, any holiday, any event, everybody’s going to always have their own sort of interpretation of it and what it means for them, right? And I believe that we should be able to do that. But for me, it’s always been about Lumbee Homecoming.”
The recognition will not make Homecoming matter – it already matters. But Brooks thinks the next one will feel different.
“I think the party’s going to be much larger,” she beamed. “Everyone’s gonna be talking about it.”
Chavis pointed out other cultural anchors that have not wavered despite the centuries-long fight: music, beadwork, pageantry, faith, food and kinship.
But she also spoke of the tri-racial Lumbee history that outsiders often misunderstand, and about a way of belonging that does not begin with percentages or skin colors.
“Instead of saying, ‘What are you?’” she said. “We’ll ask, ‘Who’s your people?’”
And that is exactly the question that highlights why recognition matters.
Who are your people?
For the Lumbee, federal recognition matters because it gives the federal government an answer it should have accepted a long time ago.
It means elders in their community will be able to receive health care.
It means children in Robeson County may one day inherit more resources than barriers.
But most of all, it means that when Lumbees say who they are, no one can pretend not to hear them anymore.
