Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Bruce Barton has been talking with several Lumbee men who participated in Robeson County's Indian high school basketball league. The league existed from 1939-1967 and consisted of teams from Union Chapel, Pembroke, Prospect, Magnolia, Green Grove, and Fairmont (the latter two combined as Fairgrove) high schools. The league also included Les Maxwell High School from Cumberland County and Hawkeye High School from Hoke County. The Robeson County Board of Education allowed no interaction between students of different races at the time, so the teams played each other and also played outside the county, such as Hamlet, Rockingham, and Wadesboro. An annual Indian basketball tournament was held in the Pembroke College gym. Barton is writing a book on the Indian basketball league and also hopes to get the league's records included with records from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and the All-Black North Carolina High School Athletic Conference.