Formed in 1787 out of Bladen County, Robeson is the state’s largest county by land mass at more than 950 square miles. The county gets its name from Colonel Thomas Robeson, who fought at the Battle of Elizabethtown during the American Revolution. At 115 miles, the Lumber River features prominently within the county and is the name inspiration for the county seat of Lumberton, and the county’s indigenous people: the Lumbee.
At nearly 40%, the Lumbee make up more of the county’s population than any other racial or ethnic group. Based in Pembroke, the Lumbee tribe has 55,000 members and is the largest tribe in North Carolina and east of the Mississippi and 9th largest in the US. The Tribe was recognized by the state in 1885 and was recognized by Congress in 1956 without any federal benefits. The Lumbee have been fighting ever since for federal recognition with benefits from the federal government.
The Lumbee famously drove out the Ku Klux Klan in 1958. At the height of Jim Crow, Klan wizard James W. “Catfish” Cole organized a rally to take place at night at Hayes Pond after hearing about 30,000 Native Americans living in Robeson County. In the days leading up to the rally, the Klan sought to intimidate the Lumbee by burning crosses into the yards of a Native American family for living in a “white neighborhood” and then a Native American woman who was allegedly in a relationship with a white man. On the night of the rally, approximately 500 Lumbee showed up to the rally of 50 to 100 Klansmen. The Klan was outnumbered and an altercation ensued, which has become known as the “Maxton Riot.”
Local media also were there that night and famously captured the photo of two Lumbee tribesmen, Charlie Warriax and Simeon Oxendine, who had pulled down the Klan’s flag and draped it around their shoulders as a symbol of the Lumbee victory over the Klan. The image and story of what happened that night made national news. Robeson County Sheriff Malcolm McLeod announced he would issue a warrant for Cole’s arrest. Cole threatened another rally of 5,000 Klansmen, but it never materialized. He was put on trial and was found guilty and sentenced to 18-20 months in prison.
Robeson is a Tier One county and ranks as the 3rd most economically distressed in the state and has the lowest median household income at $38,613, approximately $23k below the state median income. Manufacturing, health care and agriculture make up the county’s top industries. Robeson has the second-most farmland in the state at nearly 263k acres. The county ranks 5th statewide in total cash receipts from agriculture, 1st in corn production, 2nd in soybeans and wheat, 5th in hogs and 6th in broilers.
Politically, the county has drawn national attention for its dramatic shift over the past decade from reliably Democratic to favoring Republicans, in large part due to shifting political support among the Lumbee. In 2012, Barack Obama carried Robeson by 17%. In 2016, State Senator Danny Britt became the first Republican ever to win the seat since Reconstruction.
Charles Graham, a member of the Lumbee tribe who represented a Robeson State House seat from 2011-2023, was first elected in 2010 by a margin of more than 50 points. In 2022, Republican Jarrod Lowery, who served as a member of the Lumbee Tribal Council and had been active in GOP politics for years, won the seat by more than 20%.
In 2020, Politico profiled Robeson County to investigate how Donald Trump appeals nationally to diverse counties that were once Democratic strongholds. In the piece Lowery is interviewed and attributes much of the shift in support among the Lumbee towards Republicans to the fact that the Lumbee are socially conservative but also working class. Based on the upward trend in GOP support, and especially the growing support for Trump, we see it unlikely GOP support will waver in the upcoming election or in the near future.
