Daniel Herrera Carbajal + The Associated Press
The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina achieved a goal more than a century in the making on Wednesday, securing full federal recognition after Congress approved the measure as part of the passage of a national defense bill.
“It means a lot because we have been figuring out how to get here for so long,” Lumbee Tribal Chairman John Lowery told the AP just moments after celebrating the victory in the office of North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. “We have been second-class Natives and we will never be that again, and no one can take it away from us.”
The tribe became the 575th federally recognized tribe.
The tribe’s genealogical and historical claims had been called into question by several tribal leaders across the US as Congress had considered recognizing the tribe for more than 30 years. But the final push came when Donald Trump endorsed the tribe while campaigning for president last year.
“This means that I have a seat at the table now. I have been counted out before by other tribes saying that I did not exist,” Wendy Locklear, Lumbee, told the AP. “But I exist, my ethnicity exists.”
In a Friday press release from the National Congress of American Indians, the national Native advocacy organization acknowledged the Lumbee Tribe.
“NCAI looks forward to continued engagement with the Lumbee Tribe in this new chapter of their government-to-government relationship and will continue to advocate for Tribal sovereignty and the fulfillment of the federal trust responsibility across Indian Country,” said the organization.
Legislation to recognize the Lumbee tribe had struggled to pass through Congress, but it was attached to the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, passed by the Senate on Wednesday.
Trump signed the bill on Thursday.
Full federal recognition means the Lumbee tribe will have access to new streams of federal funding, including Indian Health Services funds.
It is now the largest tribe east of the Mississippi with 60,000 citizens.