The Museum Of The Southeast American Indian

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke’s Museum of the Southeast American Indian plays an important role in preserving the history of Hayes Pond.

Its exhibits and oral-history material present the confrontation as a story of Indigenous and community resistance.

The museum’s location matters.

UNC Pembroke itself grew out of educational institutions created for Native people in Robeson County.

The university’s history is therefore intertwined with Lumbee efforts to build and defend community institutions.

A museum on that campus telling the Hayes Pond story is not merely displaying a distant episode.

It is preserving local memory within a place shaped by the same community.

The museum has collected firsthand accounts from people who experienced the event, including interviews that add texture beyond newspaper summaries.

Those voices are especially valuable because dramatic events become simplified quickly.