Dean Chavers: Indian Country loses a giant with Helen Scheirbeck

Tuesday, January 25, 2011  

"She had called me on Alcatraz when we took it over. Lew Barton was the first Lumbee I heard from, and Helen was the second. Dr. Ruth Woods was the third, and she came out to Alcatraz to visit. All three of them were very excited about the Alcatraz occupation, which has led to many positive things for Indian people.

Both Mr. Lacy and Dr. Helen were leaders in the Indian community. Both made huge contributions, but Helen went way beyond everybody. Helen got half a dozen major pieces of legislation passed in Congress, some with little help from Indian Country.

Helen left Pembroke before she finished high school. Mr. Lacy sent her off to prep school in Newport, PA at the age of ten. “We didn’t have a high school at that time,” she told Ms. Jenkins. “The school only went through the tenth grade.”

From there she went to Berea College in Kentucky, where she finished in 1957. Berea was the first college in the South to be racially integrated. It also still offers a tuition-free education to its students. Her degree was in History and Political Science. And then she went to work, which she continued doing for 50 years.

She is one of only two people I have ever discouraged from getting their doctorate. There was a good reason; she was already way past a doctorate. Helen ignored me, quit her job, and went to VPI to earn her doctorate in Educational Administration. She got it in 1993, over a quarter of a century after she got her BA. Not many people do that."

Get the Story:
Dean Chavers: Around the Campfire: Helen Scheirbeck was a giant (The Native American Times 1/24)