Butterfield, G. K. (George Kenneth), 1947-

G. K. (George Kenneth) Butterfield (1947-) is a Black civil rights activist, U.S. Army veteran, lawyer, judge, and U.S. representative from Wilson, N.C. Butterfield graduated from Charles H. Darden High School and earned bachelor's and law degrees from North Carolina Central University. His commitment to civil rights and workers rights began while he was a young adult. He grew up watching his politically active parents, G. K. Butterfield and Addie Davis Butterfield, advocate for voting rights for African Americans. As a college student he worked on voter registration drives in Durham, N.C., and in 1968 he organized a march from the state capital in Raleigh to the Wilson County Courthouse in support of voting rights. Butterfield also stood with Duke University Hospital employees who were organizing in 1965 for workers' rights.

Butterfield was drafted into the U.S. Army during his junior year of college, served at Fort Bragg, then returned to North Carolina Central University to complete his bachelor degree in political science and sociology and a law degree. After law school, Butterfield returned to Wilson, N.C., to establish a law practice with partners Milton F. "Toby" Fitch and Quentin T. Sumner. In 1983, Sumner left the practice, and the following year James Andrew Wynn Jr. joined. Butterfield's litigation included voting rights cases with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that helped African American candidates get elected throughout eastern North Carolina. In 1988, Butterfield was elected Superior Court judge, a position he held until 2001, when he was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court by Governor Mike Easley. While serving on the North Carolina Supreme Court Butterfield wrote opinions on cases involving judicial sentencing procedures, eminent domain, and the application of capital punishment. Butterfield was not reelected to this position in 2002 and returned, by appointment, to the North Carolina Superior Court for another 2 years of service before retiring from the bench in 2004.

In 2004, Butterfield was elected in a special election to fill the unexpired term of Frank Ballance, who represented the 1st District of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has served the 1st District continuously since then. During his tenure, he has served on various committees (and subcommittees), including Agriculture, Armed Services, Ethics, Energy and Commerce (subcommittees on Health; Communications and Technology; Energy; and Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade), and House Administration (subcommittee on Elections). He also has served as Chief or Senior Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democratic Caucus since 2007, and chaired the Congressional Black Caucus during the 114th Congress. Butterfield's Congressional service has focused on access to health care; education; investments in rural communities, such as broadband expansion; consumer privacy; veterans; renewable energies; and federal programs, such as reduced energy rates, that support low-income and middle-class Americans.

His parents were G. K. Butterfield Sr., who emigrated from Bermuda in 1917, and Addie Davis Butterfield, who was born in Wilson County, N.C. They met at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. Addie Butterfield was a classroom teacher for 48 years, with a special focus on teaching literacy. Before attending Shaw, G. K. Butterfield Sr. volunteered to serve the United States in World War I as a non-citizen; after Shaw he attended Meharry Dental School in Tennessee, then practiced dentistry in Wilson, N.C., for 50 years. Butterfield Sr. helped found the Wilson branch of the NAACP to help register Black voters, and in 1953 was the first Black person elected to the city council in Wilson and the first Black official elected in eastern North Carolina since Reconstruction. He was defeated in 1957 after the city council changed the method of election from district to at-large representation, which diluted the strength of Ward 3, the African American district.

Butterfield has had a lifelong interest in history, especially in documenting African American history. His documentarian work accelerated while in Congress when he began taking his own photographs and collecting memorabilia during Congressional business, including diplomatic trips abroad.

Adapted from G. K. Butterfield's official biography and "Retiring Congressman G.K. Butterfield donates papers to UNC-Chapel Hill Library " by Claire Cusick.