Guilford Native American Association urges Triad to remember Indigenous history

Guilford Native American Association leaders say the Triad’s America 250 plans must start with the people who were here before the United States, not with the celebrations now being assembled for 2026. The Greensboro-based nonprofit says the lands now called Guilford County and the wider 11-county Piedmont Triad were once home to the Keyauwee and Saura, and were part of a trade route to the coast.

Executive Director Jennifer Revels Baxter said Native Americans in Guilford County were once treated as an “invisible community” and faced barriers to social, economic and educational advancement. GNAA says it was established in 1975 and is the oldest American Indian urban association in North Carolina. The North Carolina Department of Administration says the group was incorporated in September 1975 by local parents as a nonprofit education advocacy group, and has since grown into a multi-service organization with childcare, employment and age-based community programs. The state also lists GNAA as a North Carolina State-recognized American Indian organization and a United Way referral agency.

GNAA’s history page says that as late as May 1975, only one student from a total Indian population of 1,000 graduated from Guilford County’s three public school systems. Baxter tied that history to a larger regional record that reaches well beyond modern county lines. NCpedia says the Saura, also known as the Cheraw, were one of several small Siouan tribes in North Carolina’s colonial backcountry, and the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources says the Saura were among the earliest inhabitants of Piedmont North Carolina. The department says they left Upper Saura Town in 1710 after attacks by Seneca Indians and moved southeast with the Keyauwee to the Pee Dee River area. NCpedia places the Keyauwee near the Uwharrie River in present-day Randolph County.

Vice Chairwoman Amanda Ballard added a personal dimension to that history. Ballard said her son, Lance Corporal Christopher Levy, was killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2011, linking Indigenous identity in Guilford County to military service, sacrifice and family memory. North Carolina’s America 250 site lists Capitol 250: NC Freedom Fest for July 4, 2026, at the State Capitol in Raleigh, a sign that the statewide commemoration is already taking shape as Triad advocates push for a fuller account of the region’s Indigenous past.