The History Section - Henry Owl & Native American Heritage Month

Henry Owl & Native American Heritage Month

In honor of November's Native American Heritage Month, we thought we would focus our History Section on Henry Owl. 

Henry Owl
Photo from http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/vir_museum/id/568

Who is Henry Owl, you ask? Henry Owl was the first Cherokee to graduate from a North Carolina college in 1928, which just so happened to be Lenoir College.

(Lenoir-Rhyne University was once called Lenoir College. 

Learn more about that history in this post here.) 

Not only was Henry Owl the first Cherokee to graduate from a NC college, but Owl was the first Native American to be accepted into Lenoir-Rhyne and represent LR athletics. He later went on to earn his Masters Degree in History from the University of North Carolina in 1929. In his Lenoir-Rhyne days, "Owl played three years on both the football (1925-27) and baseball (1926-28) squads and still holds the record for longest fumble return for a touchdown (1927 vs. Milligan)" ("First American Indian...", 2012). 

After his college years, Henry Owl championed the fight for American Indian voting rights. He testified before the United States Senate and was a huge influencing factor in the law that granted citizenship rights to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 

To learn more...

• Native American Heritage Month 
• Library of Congress - Indians of North America
• Native American History in North Carolina

Reference:

First American Indian to Be Admitted to University of North Carolina Receives Posthumous Athletic Honor Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/01/first-american-indian-be-admitted-university-north-carolina-receives-posthumous-athletic. (2012, October 1). Retrieved from http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/01/first-american-indian-be-admitted-university-north-carolina-receives-posthumous-athletic