Qualla: The Robesonian Takeover https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Robesonian Takeover https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover The Robesonian Takeover: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover/ Photo credit United States Marshals Service, Public domain. Jimmy Earl Cummings was unarmed when a sheriff's deputy shot and killed him during a traffic stop on November 1, 1986. He was Lumbee. The deputy was the sheriff's son. The deputy was not charged. Billy McKellar was Black and asthmatic when he died in the Robeson County jail in January 1988 without receiving medical attention. He was the latest name on a list that had been growing in the county for years. On February 1, 1988, two armed Tuscarora men walked into the offices of The Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton, North Carolina, and announced that nobody was leaving until the governor sent someone to listen. The hostage standoff that followed lasted ten hours. It is not, in the end, a story about hostages. It is a story about what people do when they have exhausted every other way to be heard.

Read more: The Robesonian Takeover on Qualla

Image: United States Marshals Service | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/dnpv-the-robesonian-takeover-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Robesonian Takeover: Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover/ Photo credit United States Marshals Service, Public domain. Eddie Hatcher was a Tuscarora man, an activist, and a member of the Concerned Citizens for Better Government — a multiracial group that had formed in Robeson after the Cummings killing to push back against what its members described as a pattern of unaccountable violence by the s...

Read more: The Robesonian Takeover on Qualla

Image: United States Marshals Service | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/dnpv-the-robesonian-takeover-eddie-hatcher-and-timothy-jacobs.mp3 0:06 2 full The Robesonian Takeover: The Newspaper https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover/ Photo credit United States Marshals Service, Public domain. The Robesonian was the county's daily paper, headquartered in downtown Lumberton near the courthouse. It had a circulation of about 15,000 and a reputation for representing the white mainstream of the county. Its editorials regularly disagreed with The Carolina Indian Voice, the ...

Read more: The Robesonian Takeover on Qualla

Image: United States Marshals Service | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/dnpv-the-robesonian-takeover-the-newspaper.mp3 0:06 3 full The Robesonian Takeover: Ten Hours, Four Demands https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover/ Photo credit United States Marshals Service, Public domain. Governor James G. Martin refused to speak directly with the hostage-takers — for fear, the official story went, of setting a precedent. His chief of staff, Phil Kirk, took five phone calls from inside the newsroom. Over those hours Hatcher and Jacobs released hostages one and two...

Read more: The Robesonian Takeover on Qualla

Image: United States Marshals Service | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/dnpv-the-robesonian-takeover-ten-hours-four-demands.mp3 0:06 4 full The Robesonian Takeover: What the Investigation Found https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover/ Photo credit United States Marshals Service, Public domain. Governor Martin assembled a three-person task force. Hatcher and Jacobs met with it once. Then, after the task force refused to grant them immunity, they stopped cooperating. The investigation concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing in the sheriff's office. Eighteen days af...

Read more: The Robesonian Takeover on Qualla

Image: United States Marshals Service | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/dnpv-the-robesonian-takeover-what-the-investigation-found.mp3 0:06 5 full The Robesonian Takeover: The Vindication That Came Later https://qualla.com/the-robesonian-takeover/ Photo credit United States Marshals Service, Public domain. Hatcher's central claim — that the Robeson County Sheriff's Office was corrupt — was officially rejected by the 1988 task force. Fourteen years later, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation opened Operation Tarnished Badge after a series of incidents at the same agency....

Read more: The Robesonian Takeover on Qualla

Image: United States Marshals Service | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/p/v/the-robesonian-takeover-wp/dnpv-the-robesonian-takeover-the-vindication-that-came-later.mp3 0:06 6 full