Women's Forum Oral History Collection Interview Index

Lena Epps Brooker was born October 13, 1941 in Robeson County, North Carolina. Her father worked as a principal and her mother worked as an educational administrator for Native American schools. Brooker attended Magnolia School, which was a segregated school for Native American students. She went on to attend Meredith College, where she majored in elementary education and minored in history and political science. Brooker was among the first Native Americans to graduate from Meredith. After Meredith, Brooker worked as a teacher near Charlotte. She became involved in the women’s rights movement through her mother, who took her to the International Women’s Year conference in Winston-Salem in 1977. Brooker’s activism would become important in her work with the Commission of Indian Affairs, the Democratic Party, and the American Civil Liberties Union. At the time of the interview, Brooker lived near Asheville, North Carolina with her husband. In 2017, Brooker published a memoir, Hot Dogs on the Road, which documents her experience as a Native American growing up in rural North Carolina and attending Meredith College during segregation.