Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

The “End Racial Bigotry NOW” Web site (which was no longer available on 2/25/2012), managed by Linda LeMonde, a member of the Wendat tribe, includes UNC-Pembroke in its list of schools using “racist mascots.” The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a statement on April 16, 2001, asking that non-Native schools' use of mascots, logos, or names referring to Native Americans be eliminated because it is “disrespectful and offensive to Native Americans and others who are offended by such stereotyping.” Even though UNC-Pembroke was founded in 1887 as a normal school to educate the Croatan (now Lumbee) Indians, Linda LeMonde states, “It's wrong to use an ethnic group as a sports token. . . . Many schools have chosen to change, and I certainly hope that UNC-Pembroke will come into the 21st century.” UNC-Pembroke's mascot was an Indian brave until 1991, when Chancellor Joseph Oxendine initiated a process which changed the mascot to a red-tailed hawk (1992) and changed the school's logo from a war-dancing Indian to the profile of an Indian with an eagle in the background. The article includes remarks from Lumbee students who see the logo and mascot as recognition of past and present Lumbee pride in the university and do not find them degrading. Current Chancellor Allen Meadors states, “If the American Indians for whom this school was founded want the [mascot and logo] to stay, those who are involved in this decision should honor that.”