Today, the Baltimore Sun featured Ashley Minner, an American Studies professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a 2008 OSI Community Fellow, who spoke about the project she is working on that will create an archive of the history East Baltimore’s Lumbee Indian Community. Minner is an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe. Her work includes not only institutional archival work, but also those oral histories and personal contributions from other tribe members and elders.
Minner’s fellowship project, The Native American After School Program, used art to engage Native American youth in an out-of-school, community-based arts program to connect them to their culture as well as educate the broader community about the Native American community. Minner’s current project works to both educate and reclaim the Lumbee history and culture.
“You almost disappear if you buy into what people think about Indians in Baltimore, because no one expects to see one,” Minner said in the Sun story. “Nobody believes we’re here; half the people in the United States think we’re extinct. It’s really important to have the ability to point and reference that we have this history, we’re a people, we have a culture.”
Read the full article by clicking here.
Learn more about Minner’s Fellowship in our Impact Photo Series, “Connecting to Lumbee Heritage Through Art” by clicking here.