UNCP and it's Cultural Significance
Before our tribe was recognized in 1885, our people were told that we could only go to school with black children, or not go to school at all. Well, why didn't we just go to school with the black kids? That's what I often wondered when I was younger hearing the stories of how UNCP was founded. Why did it matter? As Native American people, we often feel left out of the conversation because in textbooks in public schools it was always written that native people we were gotten rid of. The colonizers had fought our "aggressive" ancestors, and won. Thus, we were eradicated. Except we weren't. We are still here, and we always have been. Creating our own school was such a big deal so that we could maintain our identity, stay in touch with our culture, and be taught by our own people, who knew much more about the culture than the students. Before this, some of our kids never received any kind of formal education. In 1885 a man named Hamilton McMillan garnered a separat
