White, George Henry, 1852-1918

WHITE, George Henry, a Representative from North Carolina; born in Rosindale, Bladen County, N.C., December 18, 1852; attended the public schools, and was graduated from Howard University, Washington, D.C., in 1877; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1879 and commenced practice in New Bern, N.C.; principal of the State Normal School of North Carolina; member of the State house of representatives in 1881; served in the State senate in 1885; solicitor and prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of North Carolina 1886-1894; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1896 and 1900; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1897-March 3, 1901); was not a candidate for renomination in 1900 to the Fifty-seventh Congress; resumed the practice of law and also engaged in banking; died in Philadelphia, Pa., December 28, 1918; interment in Eden Cemetery.

<p>George Henry White, lawyer, legislator, congressman, and racial spokesman, was born near Rosindale in Bladen County, the son of Wiley F. and Mary White. It is possible that he was born into slavery, although the evidence on this is contradictory. He did attend public schools in North Carolina and received training under D. P. Allen, president of the Whitten Normal School in Lumberton. In 1876 he was an assistant in charge of the exhibition mounted by the U.S. Coast Survey at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. After graduation from Howard University in 1877, he was principal of the Colored Grade School, the Presbyterian parochial school, and the State Normal School in New Bern. He studied law under Judge William J. Clarke and received a license to practice in North Carolina in 1879.</p>

<p>Entering politics in 1881, he served in the North Carolina House of Representatives for Craven County. Although an unsuccessful candidate for the state senate in 1882, he represented the Eighth District in Congress for the 1885 term and was a member of the Judiciary, Insane Asylum, and Insurance committees. In 1886 he won election to a four-year term as district solicitor of the Second Judicial District. During this period White gained the respect of many whites and blacks in his district. In addition, he became more active in religious and fraternal organizations. A founder and elder of the Ebenezer United Presbyterian Church in New Bern, he served as grand master of both King Solomon Lodge No. 1 of New Bern (1899–90) and the Colored Masons of North Carolina (1892–93).</p>

<p>In 1894 White moved to Tarboro in order to live within the boundaries of the Second Congressional District. This district, known as "The Black Second," included nine counties in the coastal plain area, from Warren and Northampton on the Virginia border to Lenoir in the south. All the counties had a sizable black population; four blacks served in the U.S. Congress from the district between 1872 and 1900.</p>

<p>George Henry White (December 18, 1852 – December 28, 1918) was an American attorney and politician, elected as a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district between 1897 and 1901. He later became a banker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in Whitesboro, New Jersey, an African-American community he co-founded. White is the last African-American Congressman during the beginning of the Jim Crow era and the only African American to serve in Congress during his tenure.</p>

<p>In North Carolina, "fusion politics" between the Populist and Republican parties led to a brief period of renewed Republican and African-American political success in elections from 1894 to 1900, when White was elected to Congress for two terms after serving in the state legislature. After the Democratic-dominated state legislature passed a suffrage amendment that disenfranchised blacks in the state, White did not seek a third term. He moved permanently to Washington, D.C., where he had a law practice and became a banker, moving again to Philadelphia in 1906.</p>

<p>After White left office, no other African American served in Congress until 1929. No African American was elected to Congress again from a former Confederate state until Barbara Jordan's election in 1972. No African American was elected to Congress from North Carolina until 1992.</p>

<p>George H. White’s bold legislative proposals combating disfranchisement and mob violence in the South distinguished him from his more reserved contemporaries. The lone African–American Representative at the dawn of the 20th century, White spoke candidly on the House Floor, confronting Booker T. Washington’s call to work within the segregated system. The onslaught of white supremacy in his home state assured White that to campaign for a third term would be fruitless, and he departed the chamber on March 3, 1901. It would be 28 years before another black Representative set foot in the Capitol. "This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress," White declared in his final months as a Representative, "but let me say, Phoenix–like he will rise up someday and come again."</p>

<p>George Henry White was born in Rosindale, North Carolina, on December 18, 1852. His father, Wiley F. White, was a free, working–class farmer. His mother, Mary, was a slave. White boasted Native–American and Irish ancestry as well as his African heritage and was notably light–skinned. George White had one sister, Flora. At the end of the Civil War, the young teenager helped out on the family farm and assisted in the family’s funeral home business while intermittently attending public schools in Columbus County, North Carolina. In 1873, he entered Howard University in Washington, DC, graduating in 1877. White joined the North Carolina bar in 1879, and served as the principal at several black public schools. He married Fannie B. Randolph in 1879 and, six years after her death in 1880, he married Cora Lena Cherry. White had four children: a daughter, Della, with his first wife, and two daughters and a son—Mary Adelyne, Beatrice Odessa, and George Henry White, Jr.—with his second wife.</p>

<p>White’s political career began with his election to the North Carolina house of representatives in 1880. That same year, he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. White initially focused on legislation pertaining to education, securing funding and authorization to open four black normal schools and provide training for black teachers. After establishing a second residence in Tarboro, North Carolina, he was elected solicitor and prosecuting attorney in 1886 in the "Black Second" district, a boot–shaped entity with a large black majority, winding from the Virginia border to the southern coast.6 White considered seeking national office at this point but decided to garner recognition among district voters through a favorable record as a solicitor.</p>