Congratulations to Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery, who was awarded the Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award, from the NC Literary and Historical Society.

Malinda, as she is known to her Lumbee People, continues a great tradition in her family for storytelling. She is a historian and documentary film producer, and citizen of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Literature from Harvard University in 1995, a Master of Arts Degree in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford University in 1997, a Master of Arts Degree from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002 and a PhD in History from Chapel Hill in 2005. 

In July 2021 she joined Emory University as the Cahoon Family Professor of American History, after spending 12 years at UNC-Chapel Hill and 4 years at Harvard University. Her second book, The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle, was published by UNC Press in 2018. The book is a survey of Lumbee history from the eighteenth century to the present, written for a general audience. Her first book, Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation  was published by (UNC Press in 2010) and won several awards, including Best First Book of 2010 in Native American and Indigenous Studies. She has written over twenty book chapters and articles, on topics including American Indian migration and identity, school desegregation, federal recognition, religious music, and foodways, and has published essays for popular audiences in places like the New York Times, Oxford American, and Daily Yonder. She has won fellowships and grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Sundance Institute, the Ford Foundation, and others. 

Films she has produced include the Peabody Award-winning A Chef’s Life, Somewhere South, Road to Race Day, the Emmy-nominated Private Violence, In the Light of Reverence, and two short films, Real Indian, and Sounds of Faith, both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her current projects include essays on the shared history of Black and Indigenous Americans and a media experience on humor and racial stereotypes with the Smithsonian Institution.

The Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award was established in 1969 by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association to honor the memory of Dr. Christopher Crittenden, the longtime secretary-treasurer of the association and director of the State Department of Archives and History from 1935 to 1968.  

This annual award is presented to a person, organization, institution, or corporate body engaged in the study, writing, teaching, publication, preservation, restoration, or dissemination of knowledge pertaining to North Carolina history. The major criterion for the award is "adjudged performance in the advancement of North Carolina history." 

Pamela Brewington Cashwell, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, congratulated Dr. Lowery in person on receiving this special award.