Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

This article highlights the accomplishments of Lumbee historian Malinda Maynor Lowery. Her 2010 book on Lumbee history (Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South), on which she comments, has been widely reviewed. On July 1, 2013, she began work as director of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program. Fittingly, this article reveals the theme of story in her academic preparation, her previous academic projects, and her family background.

It also describes the Southern Oral History Program and mentions some of Lowery's initial plans for its future. A third topic of discussion is Lowery's background as a Lumbee Indian, how it interacted with her scholarly projects on the Lumbee, and how her research and writing on Lumbee history has at times been difficult because of the divisions among Lumbee people that it uncovers. Lowery told Maguire, "History is not beautiful. . . . People are not nice to one another."

Lowery earned a masters in filmmaking at Stanford University and produced film projects related to Native Americans, including one on the Lumbee. After working for a time in filmmaking, she earned a masters and Ph.D. in history from UNC-Chapel Hill. She then taught history at Harvard and (until becoming director of the Southern Oral History Program) at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Lowery is probably the eighth Lumbee Indian to be named Tar Heel of the Week. Others include: Lew Barton (October 18, 1970); James A. Hunt (September 18, 1977); Willie French Lowery (November 11, 1979), Adolph Dial (March 15, 1988), Joseph B. Oxendine (July 30, 1989), The Rev. Michael Cummings (May 30, 1999), and Bruce Jones (Dec. 4, 1999).