In 2017 the North Carolina Folklife Institute sponsored the photography exhibit Traditions of Resistance: Civil Rights Protests in North Carolina’s Lumbee Community, in partnership with the North Carolina Folklore Society, Rob Amberg, the Lumbee Tribe.
This collection of photographs, shot by Rob Amberg during a tumultuous period in Robeson County, North Carolina, history, chronicles civil disobedience fueled by the deaths of community members and assassination of Julian T. Pierce, a candidate for Robeson County superior court judge. Amberg’s photographs offer a journalistic perspective of a community in turmoil. These photographs are testament to the power of community in action, the strength of everyday citizens, the unity created when communities are driven to confront injustice.