Upon Her Shoulders Southeastern Native Women Share Their Stories of Justice, Spirit, and Community

This book documents the autobiographical stories and poems of Southeastern American Indian women whose hard work and daily fight to keep their communities well and safe is all too often disregarded by mainstream publications and the general public. At the end of each section, the editors provide questions for reflection. Aimed at general readers and especially American Indian women themselves, this book celebrates the voices of those in native communities in the US Southeast, a region rarely covered in other publications. The editors, with deep roots in the scholarship and culture of Indian women, have collected original stories, narratives, and poems. Featured prominently is the Lumbee Indian community, where two of the editors (one of them active in the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina) teach at the nearby University of North Carolina at Pembroke College, a center for scholarship about the Lumbee people. Traditional American Indian culture places high value on teaching and passing down knowledge through story and oral history, and this volume honors that tradition with the written narratives and poetry of a variety of Native women. Through this work, provided by professional and everyday writers, readers learn about the societies that have raised girls from an early age to be independent and competent leaders, to access traditional Native spirituality despite religious oppression, and to fight for justice for themselves and Native peoples across the nation in the face of legal and societal oppression.