In early 1958 Cole focused his efforts on upholding segregation in Robeson County, North Carolina, which had a triracial population of Native Americans, whites, and blacks.

Many of the Native Americans were members of the recently recognized Lumbee Tribe, a group having its origins in other Indigenous peoples but had grown into a single community around the county.

Cole oversaw two cross burnings meant to frighten the Lumbees from racial mixing, and scheduled a Klan rally which he hoped would have a large turnout.

On January 18, 1958, Cole and about 50 Klansmen, most of whom were followers of his from South Carolina, gathered in a leased cornfield near Hayes Pond, a place adjacent to the town of Maxton.

The Lumbee people in southeastern North Carolina originated from various Native American groups which were greatly impacted by conflicts and infectious diseases dating back to the period of European colonization.

[10] In 1956 the United States Congress formally extended partial recognition to the Lumbee Tribe, affirming their existence as an indigenous community but disallowing them from use of federal funds and services available to other Native American groups.

[15] In 1954 the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

[18] There had been a Klan presence in Robeson County in the early part of the decade before it was forced out under pressure from District Solicitor Malcolm Buie Seawell and the federal government.

[9] He also began promoting the Klan in the town of Monroe in Union County, where black civil rights activists were seeking to end segregation in public facilities.

In October 1957 Cole's group attacked a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People member's house in the town, but were repelled by gunfire from armed black activists led by Robert F.

Cole informed Roberts that he was planning a large Klan rally the following Saturday night somewhere in or near the town of Pembroke, the center of Robeson's Lumbee community, where he would condemn the "mongrelization" of the races.

Rumors circulated that Robeson gun stores were selling large quantities of ammunition on Tuesday, raising fears of a violent confrontation.

[31] According to local activist Willa Robinson, black people who worked in the same businesses with Klansmen and were familiar with the KKK gave the Lumbees intelligence about the meeting.

[37] The Klansmen set up a light pole and a public address system both wired to a portable generator, a banner emblazoned with the letters "KKK",[35] and a cross which they planned to burn.

[9] A further dozen North Carolina State Highway Patrol officers under Captain Raymond Williams, some armed with submachine guns, waited about a mile down the road out of sight, ready to mobilize in case of violence.

According to Oakley, shortly before 8:30 two young Lumbee men ran forward, smashed the light pole, and shut off the public address system.

[26] Initial newspaper reports of the affair stated that one Lumbee smashed the light with the butt of his shotgun, and this version corresponded to media photographs.

[39] James Garland Martin, a Klansman who served as Cole's sergeant-at-arms,[46] was found by deputies lying in a ditch[47] and subsequently arrested for public drunkenness and carrying a concealed weapon.

[49] Simeon Oxendine, a World War II veteran and the son of Pembroke's mayor, and Charlie Warriax, stole the KKK banner.

[52] One picture from the shoot of Oxendine and Warriax wrapped in the banner was sent to other newspapers over the Associated Press wire and published a week later on a full page spread in Life.

[54] North Carolina Governor Luther H. Hodges responded to the incident by calling Sheriff McLeod and Pembroke Mayor J. C. Oxendine to assure them of his help if the situation required it.

[46] Other white observers—both locally and nationally—had mixed feelings about responsibility, expressing sympathy for the Lumbees' actions but suggesting that Cole's First Amendment rights may have been violated.

[59] On January 23 the Scottish Chief issued an editorial titled "Setting the Record Straight," which criticized the national sensationalism, saying, "all too frequently news mediums are searching for a colorful angle to a story and in doing so stretch or add to the facts.

"[42] Reflecting on the national praise for the Lumbees' actions at Hayes Pond in contrast to the muted response to the armed black resistance to the KKK in Monroe in 1957, Robert Williams wrote, "The national press played up the Indian-Klan fight because they didn't consider this a great threat—the Indians are a tiny minority and people could laugh at the incident as a sentimental joke—but no one wanted Negroes to get the impression that this was an accepted way to deal with the Klan.

[65] On January 23, Martin was tried for the drunkenness and weapons charges[64] before the Recorder's Court in Maxton by Judge Pro Tem Lacy Maynor, the second Native American in Robeson County to ever be elected to a judgeship.

[46] Cole argued in his defense that he had legally rented the field, had a right to hold a rally, and that the Lumbees had provoked the situation while McLeod had provided inadequate security.

[46][e] In the wake of Cole's and Martin's arrests as well as some disagreements about organization finances, some members of the North Carolina Knights split off and created their own Klan chapters.

[76] North Carolina Knights Grand Dragon Bob Jones told the press, "We want to ally with the Indian and see he gets some civil rights from the government.

"[82] In the aftermath of the battle, most Lumbees recalled it as a purely local affair and an action of self-defense for their community from hostile outsiders; they did not see it as a symbolic protest, an attempt to gain national attention, or as a component of the larger American civil rights movement.

[8] In October 2021, politician Charles Graham, a Lumbee from Robeson County, released a video advertisement for his 2022 campaign in North Carolina's 9th congressional district which recounted the battle.