List of Lumbees

This is a list of notable Lumbee people, including members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

List

• Dean Chavers, Ph.D., Director of Catching the Dream, formerly called the Native American Scholarship Fund.
• Ben Chavis, Ph.D., author, and advocate of high-quality urban education. From 2000, he was an early leader of Oakland's American Indian Public Charter School. It won a National Blue Ribbon Award in 2007. He was indicted in March 2017 on six felony counts for money laundering and mail fraud. In 2019,all original federal charges were dropped. ^{[1] [2]}
• Chris Chavis, professional wrestler. ^[3]
• Anybody Killa (aka ABK), hip hop artist from Detroit, MI signed to Psycopathic Records whose parents are Lumbee from North Carolina ^[4]
• Kenwin Cummings, NFL player (linebacker); attended Wingate University.
• Charles Graham, member of the North Carolina General Assembly.
• Johnny Hunt, Southern Baptist clergyman, senior pastor, former national president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
• Ashton Locklear, elite artistic gymnast, 2014 world champion with the United States team, 2016 Olympic Team Alternate and 2017 World Championship team member
• Gene Locklear, Major League Baseball player with the Cincinnati Reds, San Diego Padres and two other teams.
• Heather Locklear, American actress. ^[5]
• Jarrod Lowery, state legislator. ^[6]
• John Lowery, tribal leader and state legislator. ^[7]
• Julian Pierce, lawyer. In 1988, Pierce ran for a newly created Superior Court Judgeship in Robeson County but was shot and killed at home. Ballot counts gave the victory to Pierce. He would have been the first Native American to hold the position of Superior Court Judge in the state.
• Jana Mashonee (born Jana Sampson), two-time Grammy-nominated singer. She has won 10 Nammy Awards.
• Stacy Layne Matthews, competitor on season 3 of RuPaul's Drag Race
• Freda Porter, applied mathematician and environmental scientist known as one of the first Native American women to earn a PhD in the mathematical sciences ^[8]
• Hiram R. Revels, former U.S. Senator from Mississippi and Secretary of State of Mississippi. Also had European and African-American ancestry. ^[9]
• Kelvin Sampson, collegiate and professional basketball coach, currently the Head Coach of the Houston Cougars.
• Helen Maynor Scheirbeck, appointed by Congress to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) Board of Directors, and continues to serve as NMAI's Assistant Director of Public Programs.
• Ruth Dial Woods, educator, community worker and activist. ^[10]

References

1. "Chavis indicted for money laundering and mail fraud", The Robesonian, 30 March 2017
2. Jill Tucker, "Former Oakland charter schools director charged with fraud", San Francisco Chronicle, 30 March 2017; accessed 5 May 2017
3. Ore, Jonathan (November 16, 2018). "How Indigenous pro wrestlers lock up with racial stereotypes inside the ring". CBC.ca. Retrieved April 14, 2023. Chavis himself, however, is from the Lumbee tribe.
4. "Anybody Killa biography".
5. "Locklear | FRONTLINE". www.pbs.org.
6. "Lumbee Indian shift to GOP solidifies with flipped Robeson County state House seat". November 14, 2022.
7. "Lumbee leader to join North Carolina statehouse as tribe's federal recognition push gains attention". AP News. October 8, 2025. Retrieved November 7, 2025.
8. "Freda Porter". www.agnesscott.edu. Retrieved October 27, 2021.
9. "HIRAM REVELS". February 12, 2007. Retrieved September 20, 2025.
10. "Ruth Dial Woods". uncfsu.edu/whm. Fayetteville, North Carolina: Fayetteville State University. 2015. Archived from the original on December 3, 2015. Retrieved August 4, 2020.

See also

• List of Native Americans of the United States