A Queen Is Born

On the first weekend of July, the small town of Pembroke, North Carolina, hosts the Lumbee Homecoming, a yearly event for the nearly 55,000 people who belong to the Native American Lumbee tribe. Every year since 1968, tens of thousands of people from Robeson County and the surrounding areas have gathered for a powwow, parade, golf tournament, and the most popular event of the week: a beauty pageant.

There is no formal admission to the tribe, and the Lumbee are not federally recognized. They have no official language or land—elders say both were stolen by colonizers so early that their details are lost in history—and they receive no subsidies or federal funding. Lumbee ancestry includes intermixing between several tribes, as well as intermarriage between Native American and black communities during the 19th century. The Homecoming is, in many ways, recognition that the Lumbee give themselves.

Despite their struggle for federal status, Lumbee pride runs deep, and it’s no coincidence that the Homecoming culminates in a pageant: the beauty of Lumbee women is a point of pride. The coveted title of Miss Lumbee is awarded to several women and girls every year—there are multiple age categories, with the youngest contestants being in elementary school. The winners can receive college scholarships and roles as community ambassadors along with their yearlong claim to the crown. It’s a high-profile position that is deeply meaningful to a tribe that struggles to define itself within the Native American community.

I was raised in Durham, North Carolina, and I am interested in examining the oversimplified and stereotypical representations of the South. This photo series is part of a long-term personal project about Robeson County, which is one of the poorest counties in the state, and split nearly in thirds between white, black, and Native populations, as well as an increasing number of migrants. Although Barack Obama personally courted the Lumbee tribe in 2008 and won Robeson County on his way to taking North Carolina, the county mostly went for Trump in 2016.

Robeson County is a lowland area, flat and agricultural. Passing through on the highway between Durham and the beach, you see truck stops, billboards for churches or religious admonishments, peeling advertisements for rundown local theme parks, and signs from the grand openings of stores that were put up 20 years ago. Those road signs bely the nuances of a complex place, one that can’t be easily summarized or absorbed without slowing to the pace of a sweltering North Carolina summer. “Hotter than a Lumbee Homecoming parade” is a local expression, evoking the heat and humidity that make getting out of the car a sweaty affair.

Many Lumbee women are quintessential Southern belles. When I ask them about Lumbee culture, they quote the Bible and gleefully profess their love for collard greens, before shifting seamlessly to beaming about their Native heritage. These women are beautiful, poised, and proud, and they carry on their shoulders what they believe both Native women and all-American girls are supposed to be.

Over the course of two days this past summer, I followed a contestant for Teen Miss Lumbee, 17-year-old Kerigahn Jacobs, as she prepared for the grueling contest. Her parents got her voice lessons for the talent portion of the event—almost every contestant would sing a gospel song—and paid for the expensive outfits, both the evening wear and the traditional dress. Her mother shook her head about the expense, but said she was proud to support something her daughter was working so hard to achieve. Like many beauty pageants, Miss Lumbee contestants each choose a cause to promote, such as education, health care, or religion. For the pageant, they also design a traditional dress that includes the iconic Lumbee pinecone pattern appliquéd on the front of the dress, with representations of their chosen cause embroidered into the fabric.

On the morning of the pageant, Jacobs’s friends and family gathered at her house to help with her hair and makeup, before driving to the nearby campus of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, where the pageant would take place. Jacobs had a closed-door interview with the judges, where she explained the passion and pride she would bring to the role of Teen Miss Lumbee.

After their interviews, all the contestants began their whirlwind preparations for the evening itself, which was held at the university’s auditorium. There were three contestants for each of the headliner categories, Miss Lumbee and Teen Miss Lumbee. One by one they came out in their evening gowns, introduced themselves, and explained their platforms. Jacobs’s cause was breast-cancer awareness, which she chose after her grandmother lost her battle with the disease.

During the talent portion, most of the women sang gospel songs, but Miss Lumbee contestant Lyndsey Locklear’s tap-dance performance seemed to charm the judges. Afterward, each contestant was introduced on the arm of a tribal elder and did a two-step tribal dance. Backstage, the girls whispered last-minute advice to one another between prayers for victory. “Don’t smile during the regalia section—you’re supposed to be serious. A strong Native woman,” said one. When the winners were announced, Locklear was crowned Miss Lumbee and Jacobs was crowned Teen Miss Lumbee.

When Jacobs’s name was called, the bubbly teenager burst into tears and jumped for joy. Her lower lip trembled even as she flashed an elated smile and waved to the audience. A community of friends and family pooled at the foot of the stage, offering congratulations to the winners and consolation to the losers. As I left the auditorium, Jacobs’s tears had dried, and she was smiling perfectly for photos with the winners from other age groups, ready for the next day’s parade through Pembroke amid adoring crowds of Lumbee.

Natalie Keyssar is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn. She is interested in class inequality, youth culture, and the personal effects of political turmoil and violence, primarily in the US and Latin America. She has a BFA in painting and illustration from the Pratt Institute. Keyssar has contributed to publications such as the New York Times Magazine, Time, Bloomberg Businessweek, and the California Sunday Magazine.

This work was supported by a grant from VSCO Voices.