I have a sixth sense, but only for knowing when my dishwasher is nearly out of rinse aid. It may be the most useless supernatural power.
Dr. Ryan E. Emanuel
@waterpotential.bsky.social
Lumbee scientist, educator, & engaged scholar. North Carolinian. Duke Professor studying water, climate change, environmental justice, & Indigenous rights. Author of ON THE SWAMP: FIGHTING FOR INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. he/him. www.RyanEmanuel.com
Julian Pierce would have been the first Lumbee Superior Court judge in county history. It would have finally given Lumbee people a voice. They elected him anyway, ten weeks dead, by two thousand votes. My great-uncle was the sheriff. Here’s what I found. thegrounded.ghost.io/the-election...
Interview ahead of my upcoming book talk in Morehead City, NC - also a fundraiser for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch. coastalreview.org/2026/07/indi... #Lumbee #Indigenous #EnvironmentalJustice #Hydrology
Indigenous environmental justice: Author links culture, water | Coastal Review
Duke University professor and member of the Lumbee Tribe Dr. Ryan Emanuel is Coastal Carolina Riverwatch's guest speaker next week in Morehead City to discuss links between historic Indigenous oppress...
coastalreview.org
Yesterday, Lumbee voters rejected the tribal government‘s bid to amend constitutional language on gaming. If you want to learn more, read this great report from Sarah Nagem of the Border Belt Independent! Then (if I may humbly suggest) read my longish thread below.
Carli Brosseau@carlibrosseau.bsky.social · last mo.About 62% of the roughly 9,000 tribal members who cast ballots voted no, according to unofficial results from the Lumbee Tribe Elections Board. borderbelt.org/lumbee-tribe...
New essay in the latest issue of @ecotonemagazine.bsky.social in which I reflect on #ClimateChange, racism, memory, & more. I wrote the 1st draft back in 2020-2021 as part of a preface for ON THE SWAMP. As the book evolved, this piece fell to the wayside. I'm glad it finally found a home in Ecotone!
Ecotone Magazine@ecotonemagazine.bsky.social · 2mo agoToday we’re featuring Ryan E. Emanuel’s “Countermemories and Climate Change,” a Climate Annotation on memory, oppressive history, and understanding. Free to read online for the next two weeks. ecotonemagazine.org/climate-anno... @WaterPotential.bsky.social
Today we’re featuring Ryan E. Emanuel’s “Countermemories and Climate Change,” a Climate Annotation on memory, oppressive history, and understanding. Free to read online for the next two weeks. ecotonemagazine.org/climate-anno... @WaterPotential.bsky.social
ON THE SWAMP is a Silver winner of the 2026 Nautilus book awards, and I’m grateful for the recognition. The book explores #EnvironmentalJustice through perspectives of Lumbee & other Indigenous peoples of present-day eastern North Carolina. Check it out! uncpress.org/978146967832...
What Landback isn't is a demand for Non-Natives to hand over their housekeys or master plan to rid the land of Non-Natives. Landback is a framework, a set of ideas & possibilities that can take very different shapes depending on the land in question, the tribe involved and people doing the work.
Great visit to University of Minnesota this week. I gave a seminar on environmental justice for environmental science & had conversations on topics ranging from the challenges of confronting colonialism in academia to the joys of finding a good conference roommate. I also squeezed in 2 short runs.
Article by @murphsturph.bsky.social gets most details right, but the headline is wrong. Under the proposed action, Lumbee citizens will *not* actually vote to allow casinos or gambling. www.wral.com/news/local/l...
Lumbee Tribe to vote on allowing casinos, gambling
The tribal council voted last week to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would allow the newly federally recognized tribe to authorize gaming on tribal lands.
wral.com
This year, @americanrivers.bsky.social placed the Lumbee River on its list of Most Endangered Rivers due to contamination from PFAS & other “forever chemicals.” See their write-up here 👇🏽. I’m also dropping links below to some of my research on river’s environment, history, & cultural significance.
American Rivers@americanrivers.bsky.social · 4mo ago#DYK? 🤔 The Lumber River's dark, tea-colored waters wind through wetlands and forested floodplains, providing wildlife habitat, natural flood protection, and drinking water for thousands of people. www.americanrivers.org/river/lumber...
The severity of the western US snow drought notwithstanding, it warmed my heart to hear Kelsey Jencso—Montana State Climatologist & a friend of 20+ years—on the radio yesterday. He says the segment was recorded 2 weeks ago, which makes the situation all the more dire. www.npr.org/2026/04/08/n...
Light snowpack is setting up conditions for drought and fires in the U.S. West
The West has had one of the worst winters for snowpack on record. The lack of snow is causing drought across much of the reason and spelling trouble for communities.
npr.org
I made James Locklear's "365 Days of Lumbee History" on Facebook! Locklear is a journalist & editor of Native Visions magazine, a monthly publication in and around Lumbee territory. Last fall, he began a year of daily posts featuring a tribal member, past or present. www.facebook.com/share/p/1Axf...
It was transforming the biggest NFL stage in the world into a sugar cane plantation that did it for me. Like, the multiple layers of turning an American icon into a plantation and highlighting the history of exploitation of Black and Brown bodies by the NFL and American colonialism simultaneously?
68 years ago today, Lumbee people & their allies routed the KKK at the Battle of Hayes Pond. Read a brief summary in my unrolled 2018 Twitter thread below or a detailed retelling in Malinda Lowery’s 2020 Scalawag piece: scalawagmagazine.org/2020/01/ambu.... #CivilRights #Indigenous #Lumbees
Dr. Ryan E. Emanuel@waterpotential.bsky.social · 3y agoToday marks 66 years since the Battle of Hayes Pond - a key moment in Lumbee history and in the intersecting stories of Civil and Indigenous Rights. Read my unrolled thread from the 60th anniversary commemoration (2018) to learn more about it. threadreaderapp.com/thread/95385...
Tomorrow at 9am - Live diacussion on WFAE about Lumbee federal recogntition with Jesalyn Keziah, Mary Ann Jacobs, and myself. www.wfae.org/show/charlot...
The Lumbee Tribe is finally federally recognized. Why it matters and what’s next
After a 137-year struggle, North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe has received full federal recognition. It fulfills one of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises and opens new opportunities for the tribe....
wfae.org
Today (1pm EST) on Native America Calling, “Lumbee Nation secures its sovereign status.” I look forward to this discussion & call-in show with academics Malinda Lowery, (Emory), David Wilkins (Richmond), and Carrie Schuettpelz( Iowa).
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 – Lumbee Nation secures its sovereign status » Native America Calling
With the stroke of a pen, the U.S. welcomes more than 50,000 new federally recognized tribal citizens. After numerous failed attempts, the Lumbee Nation is the 575th federally recognized tribe — the f...
nativeamericacalling.com
It's official - the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) has renamed itself the Advancing Indigenous Science and Engineering Society (still AISES). Membership voted to change the name earlier this year to better reflect the organization's geographic scope. aises.org
AISES | Advancing Indigenous People in STEM
AISES is a national nonprofit organization focused on substantially increasing the representation of Indigenous peoples of North America and the Pacific Islands in science, technology, engineering, an...
aises.org
Great interview with journalist, author, & filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat on Lumbee recognition. I highly recommend clicking through the NativeNews header below and watching the 20-min recorded interview. 1/2
Next on Native Bidaské: Julian Brave NoiseCat on the Lumbee Nation’s 140-Year Fight for Federal Recognition
Native News Online presents a timely and powerful conversation on Native Bidaské between host Levi Rickert and acclaimed author and journalist Julian Brave NoiseCat, focusing on the Lumbee Tribe of No...
nativenewsonline.net
Also. In celebration of the Lumbees finally receiving federal recognition, here's a taste of Dr Ashley Minner-Jones' EXTRAORDINARY work documenting and telling the stories of Lumbee Baltimore www.baltimorereservation.com
East Baltimore’s Historic American Indian “Reservation”
Learn about places and spaces important to American Indian history and heritage in Baltimore, MD, with a focus on East Baltimore’s 20th-century “Reservation”.
baltimorereservation.com
In other news... promoted to full professor at Duke! nicholas.duke.edu/news/emanuel... #DukeEnvironment
Emanuel Becomes Full Professor
Ryan Emanuel has been promoted from associate professor to full professor in the Division of Environmental Social Systems. His scholarship sits at the intersection of hydrology, climate change, enviro...
nicholas.duke.edu
The Lumbee Tribe has been in North Carolina since long before we became a state. The Lumbee were officially recognized by the State of North Carolina in 1885 and have fought for their fair share from the federal government for more than a century.
The 1956 Lumbee Act was amended this week, concluding a decades-long effort to have Congress strike discriminatory language that subjected Lumbees to nearly 70 years of partial federal recognition. But no longer. The Lumbee Tribe of NC is now *fully* recognized by the US—the 575th Native Nation.
Dr. Ryan E. Emanuel@waterpotential.bsky.social · 8mo agoThe reconciled NDAA includes a provision to amend the 1956 Lumbee Act by removing a discriminatory, Termination-Era clause & inserting new language to affirm the Tribe's federal status. Here are a few resources to help make sense of what's happening & why. I may post more later.
15 years ago today (Dec 15, 2010) I published an ope-ed on Lumbee recognition in @newsobserver.com. I hadn't seen this piece in a while & was struck that it foreshadows my work on Indigenous rights & #EnvironmentalJustice... several years before these terms entered my professional lexicon. #ncpol
1st paper 👊 by Duke’s Skye-Anne Tschoepe maps North Carolina’s methane gas pipelines, shows racial disparities in routes, & explains how results of #EnvironmentalJustice analyses are sensitive to analyst decisions. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/... #ncpol @geohealthjournal.bsky.social
Fueling Inequity: Geospatial Analyses Reveal Racial Patterns in Vulnerability to Natural Gas Pipeline Impacts in North Carolina
African American and American Indian populations are overrepresented in block groups with high social vulnerability index and high pipeline density Half of the pipeline mileage in North Carolina ...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Our work is featured in today’s research news from @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social: “A new study highlights major educational gaps among environmental professionals regarding Indigenous peoples, and shows how those gaps can impact real-world decisions.” esa.org/blog/2025/12... #GeoSky #OpenAccess
esa.org