james knox braboy

  The Leland Grove Indian School in Little Rock served Pee Dee and Lumbee children from Marlboro and Dillon counties under the long-term stewardship of James Knox Braboy.

Braboy was a Lumbee Indian born in Robeson County, NC in 1906. He married Lily Hall, a white woman, in 1931. They moved to McColl shortly after because mixed marriages were forbidden in North Carolina at that time. 

In 1934, Braboy began teaching at the Leland Grove Indian School. He served as principal, teacher, and custodian from 1934 to 1970. Before the county provided a bus, he famously walked his students across a bridge over the Little Pee Dee River to school, and he later drove the bus himself for many years. 

In 1970, Braboy was selected as South Carolina's Teacher of the Year, the first man and the first Lumbee Indian to receive the award. He died in 1976. In the Fairview Methodist Church cemetery in Hamer, his inscription reads: “He was just, he loved kindness, he served his people faithfully and walked humbly with God.”