EBCI marches to raise awareness for missing, murdered indigenous people
The annual Qualla Boundary MMIR/P march provided a space for grief, community and action.
Lily Levin photo
Friends, family and allies dressed in red, some with signs like “no more stolen sisters” and “gun violence is on the rise,” gathered on May 5 at Oconaluftee Island Park. They’d shown up for the Qualla Boundary’s seventh annual missing and murdered Indigenous relatives/people march, coinciding with national week of action events across the country in communities impacted by what some scholars describe as a “a modern form of genocide.”
MMIR/P is a movement in response to the disproportionate rate of murders among Indigenous people — usually, but not always, women and girls — which on some reservations is about 10 times the national average. When cases do happen, they’re often ignored; 95% of those tracked by the Urban Indian Health Institute were not reported by mainstream outlets. And according to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, 56.1% of Indigenous women are victims of sexual violence.
North Carolina in 2025 was one of 10 states with the greatest proportions of those missing and murdered. Specifically, the Qualla Boundary sits alongside a major interstate highway, and in recent years human trafficking rates have skyrocketed. Meanwhile, the Trump administration in early 2025 removed a comprehensive report tracking and responding to MMIR/P cases from every federal website.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee event was first organized in 2020 by enrolled member Loretta Bolden after losing a friend and her brother and amid her own grieving process.
“We just had so many [missing and murdered community members]. After I started looking into it, there were so many that I was like, ‘How are we not doing anything here?’” said Borden of that time.
She decided to take on the cause.
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The MMIR/P list in 2020, now filled with 66 names after painstaking, comprehensive research, recognized fewer than half.
Though Bolden is now less involved with the movement — “I’m getting tired of working,” she said with a chuckle — she attended the protest and is still passionate about helping others heal.
For seven years, the annual event has told the stories behind the statistics, raised public awareness, facilitated community grieving, platformed sound policy and ensured that missing and murdered relatives are collectively remmbered and loved.
ADDRESSING THE CRISIS
The May 5 march began with speeches from public officials — such as tribal council members Shennelle Feather (Yellowhill) and Venita Wolfe (Big Cove), Chief of Police Carla Neadeau and Principal Chief Michell Hicks — and movement advocates like Qualla Boundary MMIW co-chair Maggie Jackson.
Several speakers noted that the MMIR/P crisis is a result of long-standing systems of oppression — and that it needs to be addressed through various tactics.
Jackson spoke passionately about the former.
“What we are facing here on the Qualla Boundary does not exist in isolation,” she said. “Since first contact, colonizing systems have repeatedly sought to remove Indigenous people from our homelands through violence, forced assimilation and the erasure of our lives and stories. The missing and murdered relatives we carry today are not separate from that history. They are an extension.”
Neadeau, in accordance with her line of work, highlighted potential solutions — which she said are not limited to reactive measures. To address something as complex as MMIR/P, one must get ahead of the problem.
“[Today] serves as a call to action, reminding us that we must do more than just investigate crimes. We must educate through awareness campaigns, collaboration with local leaders and new intervention programs,” she told the audience.
“But we cannot do this alone. It takes all of us — families, leaders, educators and allies — to bring justice, healing and hope,” she added.
One person in a unique position to promote policy at the state level is Anna Ferguson. Appointed mid-April to replace the late representative Mike Clampitt, Ferguson is the first enrolled tribal member to serve in the state House. Hence, she brings a unique perspective to the legislature, especially when it comes to understanding tribal jurisdiction within county lines.
“There’s a child advocacy bill where we’re working on making sure that the Eastern Band is included as well as counties, because the language reads now that you fall under county jurisdictions, but the Eastern Band is a sovereign nation,” she said, adding that she’d also like to see the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people be awarded state recognition.
Jackson grounded addressing MMIR/P through increased access to domestic violence prevention education, which she said can have an acute impact in small communities like the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. And if violence does occur, she said, survivors should have more robust protections.
“At a national level and at a state level, I would just like to see domestic violence be taken more seriously,” she said.
Like Ferguson, Jackson mentioned how jurisdictional complexities can influence legal outcomes and decisions.
“If domestic violence happens [on the Qualla Boundary], you might have to go to the neighboring county for court and for prosecution,” she said. “And although here we try really hard to protect our people, you may not get the same experience at another court system.”
What’s more, said Jackson, a case must rise to a certain level to be deemed worthy of federal investigation.
Incorrect case records have also complicated attempts at cohesive database creation.
“One of the root causes that scholars have attributed to the MMIP and MMIR issue is data misclassification — data erasure. A lot of times, these people will be classified as Hispanic or Asian, Black, White,” said Jackson.
A 2023 study identified significant discrepancies in reporting between the official North Carolina MMIR/P database and a publicly available MMIR/P bulletin.
HEALING TOGETHER
The “march” portion of the event, encompassing a few blocks of Tsali Boulevard, did not involve chanting nor shouting nor song. If anyone spoke, it was to communicate softly with the person beside them. The sounds of the Oconaluftee River carried the crowd.
Standing banners lined park walkways, each representing one Qualla Boundary MMIR.
Some listed the individual’s name and explained that “researchers found limited personal information to honor [her/his] memory by,” urging viewers to contact organizers with any potential findings.
Others included a photo and blurb submitted by loved ones. Many of these descriptions included specific personality traits or memories — “‘she was spitfire,’” “she was an avid fan of Duke Basketball,” “[she] had the softest, sweetest laugh,” “her story is about more than how we lost her” — underscoring the movement’s message to remember who someone was instead of what happened to them.
At times, a family would stand beside a banner of whom they had lost. Erin Shuler volunteered for the event because her sister was murdered in 2025. She’s still waiting for the case to go to trial.
“It’s hard, because across the Indian country, especially out west, there’s a lot of people that go missing. No one ever asked questions … These people were people. They had families and they were somebody, regardless [of] if their cases are done or not,” said her husband, Stephen Shuler.
Speakers addressed the pain present that day, emphasizing that when even one person is hurting, everyone is touched. Feather, for example, analogized the collective experience of losing someone through the inner workings of river cane, a bamboo sacred to the EBCI.
“[River cane] exists from a mother plant, and it goes off of those ribosome shoots, and they’re all connected … So, whenever that mom sends those shoots out to grow, it trusts that it’s going to be safe as far away as it goes,” she said, adding that “as indigenous people, as Cherokee people, the nature where we live, it reflects who we are.”
While the councilwoman has two cousins on the MMIR/P list, she said her heart hurts as much for them as anyone honored by a banner in the park.
“Just because those two are my blood relatives, it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel what you guys all feel from your relatives. And I just want to say that I offer that feeling. We all feel a void. We all feel that loss,” she said.
Feather also commended the audience for attending the march.
“I just want to thank you all for your heart, your intentionality and just showing up today, even if that’s the only thing you feel that you can do,” she said.
Jackson encouraged non-Indigenous allies to participate and demonstrate their support.
“You don’t have to know someone who’s fallen victim to violence to come here to honor them,” she said.
Similarly, collective gathering is a central aspect of the march because organizers understand that in isolation, the MMIR/P crisis cannot be adequately addressed nor confronted.
“We’re a small community, but we love one another, we care for one another, and I think that’s how you heal as a community from something so significant,” said Jackson.
