Challenging the South's Black-White Binary: Haliwa-Saponi Indians and Political Autonomy

This thesis explores how the Haliwa-Saponi Indians Halifax and Warren County, North Carolina, challenged the Jim Crow black-white racial classification system between the 1940s and 1960s. To seek political autonomy the Indians worked with and against the dominant strategies of the civil rights movement. The Indians strategically developed Indian-only political and social institutions such as the Haliwa Indian Club, Haliwa Indian School, and Mount Bethel Indian Baptist Church by collaborating with Indians and whites alike. Internal political disagreement led to this diversity of political strategies after 1954, when school desegregation became an issue throughout the nation. One faction of Meadows Indians embraced a racial identity as colored and worked within the existing black-white political and institutional system, while another group eschewed the colored designation and, when necessary, asserted a separate political identity as Indians; as such, they empowered themselves to take advantage of the segregated status quo.Master of Art