Sutton is the only American Indian serving in the General Assembly, he is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.
Lumbee |
The Coharie have intermarried predominantly with the Lumbee and Tuscarora Indians of Robeson County, as well as with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The 1956 Lumbee Act blocked the BIA from fully recognizing the Lumbee and withheld the full benefits of federal recognition from the tribe.
In 2009, leaders of the state-recognized Lumbee tribe, based in Robeson County, North Carolina, passed an resolution asking the legislature to return the river to its ancestral name of Lumbee which was Siouan for "Dark Water".
In Georgia, Lumbee John Oxendine is elected statewide as Commissioner of Insurance.