Thursday, December 18, 2025

The Lumbee Tribe is celebrating the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes legislation to grant the tribe federal recognition.

The U.S. Senate passed the defense bill Wednesday, as Lumbee citizens gathered in Pembroke, N.C. for a watch party.

Lumbee Chairman John Lowery was in Washington D.C. for the vote, and shared a short video message saying he’s the last chairman to go the nation’s capital to fight for full federal recognition.

“Now our children and our grandchildren, our great grandchildren can come up here working and fighting and promoting other things for our people.”

The tribe has sought federal status for more than a century.

The Lumbee’s effort has faced opposition, including by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, while President Donald Trump promised the Lumbee Tribe federal recognition.

President Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt in 1941 and President Donald Trump in 2025 invoking the Alien Enemies Act.

This December marked the 84th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing – a shocking attack that drew the U.S. into World War II and unleashed a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria.

While the U.S. would join a global fight against fascism and Nazi concentration camps, it was erecting camps of its own at home, forcing tens of thousands of Japanese Americans into internment.

Two of those camps were set up on tribal lands in Arizona.

In the first of a 5-part series, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio examines the law that has given presidents power to imprison perceived enemies.

It all began December 7, 1941, a Sunday morning in Hawaii, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

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