Lumbee Roots and Navy Boots by U.S. Navy Megan Mills, NAS Sigonella
November , 2020
With his sandy hair and blue eyes, Engineman 2nd Class Jason
Rogers is aware that you may not recognize his Native American ancestry
at first glance. He learned of his Lumbee heritage when he was about
four years old, which has been an integral part of his life and
military service ever since.
“I look more like my dad. When I
was a kid, I didn’t even know what a Lumbee was until my mom told
me,” he said. “When we would come back down home, we wouldn’t really
go out in town when I was younger. It wasn’t till I got older that I
talked to strangers and realized they talked just like my Aunt
Nelly, and I can’t understand a word she’s saying.”
 November 10, 2020 - Engineman 2nd Class Jason Rogers at his desk
onboard Naval Air Station (NAS) Sigonella. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kegan E. Kay)
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“Come back down home” is a phrase Rogers uses frequently when
describing Robeson County and the town of Pembroke, North Carolina,
which is where a majority of the Lumbee Tribe still reside.
In fact, Lumbee members make up over 40% of Robeson County’s
population. Rogers was born there, and though he moved across the
state to Concord as a child, he returned frequently with his mother,
who was also a member of the Lumbee Tribe.
It’s also not the
only phrase that stands out when you listen to Rogers speak. The
Lumbee dialect includes some unique vocabulary; for example, to
“make a mummuck of things” means to make a mess of things, and an “ellick”
means coffee with sugar. Rogers acquired it during his frequent
trips to Robeson. “The more I went down to home, I actually
developed the dialect,” said Rogers. “Then I’d go back to school in
Concord and my English teachers would get mad at me because I’m
talking all types of medicine and they’d be like, ‘that’s not how
you say things.’”
This language barrier has even
occasionally caused issues during Rogers’s service in the Navy.
“When I was in Japan, I was talking with a Haitian second class and
a Filipino first class, and they’re yelling at me because they
couldn’t understand a word I was trying to tell them, and then I had
to break my own dialect,” he said.
However, he has not
broken his connection to his culture.
Historians debate the
roots of the Lumbee tribe; while some originally thought they
descended from the lost tribe of Roanoke, now many believe they are
related to Siouan or Cheraw tribes. Though the origins of the Lumbee
remain uncertain, it is now the ninth largest tribe in the United
States and the largest east of the Mississippi River.
Today, its members are racially diverse, but they share both a
dialect and a culture. Rogers learned about Lumbee culture mostly
from his mother, Sherry Taylor Rogers, and grandfather, James
Taylor, both of whom have passed away. However, it took him a while
to fully embrace it.
“I was proud of it, but I wasn’t really
proud of it till I got the medicine wheel tattoo when I was 18,”
said Rogers. "I didn't really know what it meant until my
grandfather passed away." The medicine wheel, a circle divided into
four different colored quarters, represents the cycle of life.
According to Rogers, “red is birth, yellow is growth, then maturity
is black, and white is obviously death.”
Rogers also learned
about his heritage through cultural events in Robeson County,
including the play “Strike at the Wind,” which tells the story of
the Lowrie War, and the annual Lumbee Homecoming.
Homecoming
is a large annual celebration that includes traditional dances and
clothes, arts and crafts, and a place for people to come together
from far away. “People will put on family shirts. They have pride in
their family, pride in what they do, and it’s an amazing
experience,” Rogers remembered.
Family both inspired Rogers
to join the military and also led him to defer his dreams for a
time. His grandfather, James Taylor, served in the Army, as did his
cousin Charles Bullard. “I always wanted to go,” he said. “I always
had that militant mindset. I didn’t really see myself staying in
North Carolina.” He signed up for the Marines when he was 18, but
when his mother became ill, he decided to stay home and take care of
her. As he took care of her, he took on a few jobs and went to
school for a while, but the call to service never left him.
“I always thought if I don’t join the military by the time I’m 25,
I’m not going to join, so when I hit 24, I joined the Navy,” he
said.
According to the Naval History and Heritage Command,
there is a long and honorable tradition of Native Americans serving
in the military. In addition to serving in high numbers in nearly
every major war the United States has taken part in, as of 2012,
there were over 22,000 American Indians serving in the military. The
Navy includes about 15,000 active duty, reservist, and civilians who
declare themselves Native American.
As fate would have it, Rogers’s service in the Navy would lead
him to serving under a commanding officer, who was also a member of
the Lumbee Tribe.
“His name was Cmdr. Morris Oxendine,” he
said. “You can’t miss him. He looks like a Lum and talks like a Lum.
Everybody thought that man sounded different, but I thought he
sounded like home!”
Rogers’s pride was evident as he spoke of
the now-Captain Oxendine. “That was the first time I’d ever seen a
Lum in the military,” Rogers recalled. “To see him at such a high
rank was a good feeling.”
The son of a sharecropper, Oxendine
joined the Navy as a Seaman in 1982 and was commissioned as an
Ensign in 1996. He gives credit to his Lumbee heritage for his
success. “When I came into the Navy, I already knew the value of
teamwork and I understood the value of working for what you believe
in,” Oxendine wrote. “The Navy is a team rooted in the values of
honor, courage, and commitment. I was able to be successful in the
Navy because my Lumbee Indian heritage taught me these same values.”
Rogers also believes that his identity as a member of the Lumbee
tribe is intertwined with his military service. “Lums are hard
workers,” he said. “They grow their own crops and they have their
own way of living. They built that. I take that with me. Not only do
I have that hardworking attitude, but everything I do, I reflect
back on my family and on the race that I represent, which is my
Lumbee tribe.”
Oxendine recognized those traits in Rogers
from their time together. “He was always working on that old
[Landing Craft Utility],” he recalled. “He was a hard worker and an
outstanding Sailor.”
Although the Lumbee tribe has been
officially recognized by the state of North Carolina, it remains
unrecognized by the government of the United States. It’s a
complicated process with a long and fraught history, but federal
recognition could lead to grants and other benefits for tribe
members. Despite attempts from as early as 1888 and as recently as
2019, all efforts have thus far fallen short, and the Lumbee Act of
1956 preventing Lumbee from receiving federal benefits is still in
effect.
The fight for recognition has been a part of Rogers’s
life since childhood. “As long as I’ve known I was a Lumbee, all
I’ve ever heard is, ‘Can we get federally recognized?’ It’s been
going on for over two hundred years.”
Recent efforts have bipartisan backing, though, and during
October of 2020, both President Donald Trump and former Vice
President Joe Biden pledged their full support for federal
recognition during campaign stops in the Lumbee homeland.
Whatever the outcome, Rogers continues to embrace both the Navy and
his heritage. Rogers has no intention of leaving the Navy anytime
soon, and he’s grateful for the experiences he’s had. “I always
wanted to travel, see the world. I’ve been to 31 countries by now.
It’s been a heck of an experience.”
At the same time, he is
eager to return to Robeson County for a longer visit as soon as the
pandemic allows. “I definitely can’t wait to go back down home,” he
said. “I would love to see another Homecoming.”
Note... Minor editing without impacting factual aspects.
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