Oral history interview with Barry Nakell, October 1, 2003
Subtitle: interview U-0012, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Lowery, Malinda Maynor, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Race relations; Civil rights; Civil rights movements; Lawyers; Lumbee Indians; Tuscarora Indians; Indians of North America; Ethnic identity; African Americans; Relations with Indians
Other titles: Interview U-0012, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Barry Nakell, October 1, 2003; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: 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.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on June 5, 2007).

Interview participants: Barry Nakell, interviewee; Malinda Maynor, interviewer.

Duration: 01:03:57.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 95.5 kilobytes, 117 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series U, The long civil rights movement : the South since the 1960s, interview U-0012, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by L. Altizer. Original transcript: 28 p.

Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.