IN MEMORIAM: Helen Maynor Scheirbeck August 21, 1935 - December 19, 2010

Abstract

IN MEMORIAM Helen Maynor Scheirbeck August 21, 1935 - December 19, 2010 Dr. Helen Maynor Scheirbeck spoke as a Lumbee and for all American Indians She was fearless yet humble; when confronted with opposition she simply shook h head and said "no" until the opposing party agreed. Her force of character and tirele service to Indian people made this tough strategy successful. Her fight for advancing American Indian education and civil rights lasted over four decades. She articulated the principle behind that persistence when she testified abou Lumbee recognition before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in 2003. She sa the federal government failed to "respect our people's unique community" by no recognizing the Lumbees. This statement stemmed from her upbringing as a Lumbee but also from decades of work with other tribes. In 1961 , she helped her father, Jud Lacy Maynor, organize the Southeastern regional meetings of the American Indi Chicago Conference; she listened to other Indian people and heard that the feder government disrespected all tribes. "There is a principled issue at stake here," sh continued in her 2003 Senate testimony - "the right to self-determination and. . .respe in the eyes of the federal government, regardless of race, color, or culture." She insist upon American Indian self-determination in education and that the government li up to its obligations. Subsequent to the Chicago Conference, Helen worked for the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, where she became a major force for passin the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. Her people's belief in Indian-controlled education motivated her action. Helen founded and directed the Office of Indian Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the 1960s and 1970s; this subtle yet courageous maneuver took control of Indian education away from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and put it in the hands of Indian people. In this capacity, and as national director of the American Indian office of Head Start in the 1980s, she funded Indian-run educational institutions from pre-K programs to tribal colleges. Kevin Gover, director of the National Museum of the American Indian (NM AI), reflected, "She had a hand in every major initiative in Indian education for the last forty years," including the 1972 Indian Education Act. In 1980 she received a doctorate in education from Virginia Tech. She supported two of her people's most important cultural initiatives: the Center for the Arts and the North Carolina Indian Cultural Center. Both were controversial, at home for their lack of provincialism and in Washington for their unabashed aid for non-federally recognized Indians. Ultimately she found a platform for her talents as an administrator and advocate at the NMAI, serving on its founding board of directors then joining the staff in 2000 to prepare for its grand opening in 2004. Shortly after receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2009, "Dr. Helen," as we affectionately called her, suffered a debilitating stroke. Sam Deloria, director of the American Indian Graduate Center, spoke at Dr. Helen's memorial service in her hometown of Pembroke, North Carolina. He summed up her contributions and that of the Lumbees to American Indian affairs by saying that Helen, and her people, knew how to be Indians without having a federal relationship. Neither Helen, nor her ancestors before her, would accept anything less than self-determination in our future and our children's education. - Malinda Maynor Lowery (Lumbee) University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, June 15, 201 1 12 Journal of American Indian Education - Volume 50, Issue 2, 201 1 ...