Hayes Pond insists that Native political history continued into the modern era.

The people at the field were not living out the final chapter of an old story.

They were making a new one.

The Final Meaning Of Hayes Pond

The Battle of Hayes Pond is sometimes summarized in a single satisfying sentence: the Klan came to intimidate the Lumbee, and the Lumbee sent them running.

That sentence is true.

But everything that makes it meaningful sits behind it.

The Lumbee had spent generations defending their identity.

Congress had only recently passed a law recognizing their name while withholding full federal status.

Robeson County lived under a triracial system of segregation.