George Henry White (1852-1918)

January 18, 2007

Congressman George Henry White

Courtesy Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-44956)

George H. White served as a member of the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth United States Congresses (March 4, 1897-March 3, 1901) from North Carolina’s Second Congressional District during what historian Rayford Logan has termed the nadir in race relations for the post-Reconstruction South. Born in Rosindale, North Carolina on December 18, 1852, White graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1877, and was admitted to the bar in 1879. White practiced law and served as the Principal of the State Normal School of North Carolina until he entered politics in 1881, at which time he served for a year in the North Carolina House of Representatives. Four years later he served for a term in the state’s senate. From 1886 to 1894, White worked for the second judicial district of North Carolina as solicitor and prosecuting attorney.

As a well-educated veteran politician and advocate of racial justice, White served as a spokesman for African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. White, for example, introduced the first bill to make lynching a Federal crime. Indicating that he was well aware that he would be the last black Congressman for some time, White eloquently described the impact and illogical nature of white racism in his “Defense of the Negro Race—Charges Answered,” speech delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 29, 1901. In his speech, white argued that his Euro-American colleagues defied the U.S. Constitution when they encouraged racial violence, flamed the fires of racial animosity, and encouraged passage of laws which denied to African Americans privileges preserved for them in the Fourteenth and Fifteen Amendments. He condemned the tendency among some Democratic Congressmen to publicly extol the negative attributes of a few African American individuals as representative of the entire race. After leaving office White moved to Philadelphia where he resumed the practice of law. In 1903 he founded the town of Whitesboro, New Jersey. George H. White died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 28, 1918.

About the Author

Author Profile

Tekla Ali Johnson

Tekla Ali Johnson earned a Ph.D. in history with an emphasis in African American Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. At UNL she studied World System Theory with Andre Gunder Frank and, Africology and Kawaida Methodology at the Black Studies Department at UNO, with Dr. James Conyers. As a former traveling spouse, Ali Johnson taught Africana Studies on a number of campuses including: North Carolina A & T State University, Johnson C. Smith University and Salem College in North Carolina, Harris Stowe State and Clarkson University. She has served as Coordinator of the African & African American Studies Minor, Coordinator of the History Program, and co-founder of an emerging Concentration in Public History. From 2010-2014 She taught Africana Studies, Public History, and Women’s History at a women’s college. After a residency at the James Weldon Johnson African American Interdisciplinary Institute at Emory University, and an encounter there with the archives and person of Alice Walker, Ali Johnson acquired a degree in library science with an emphasis on Archives. Her first book ‘Free Radical’: Ernest Chambers, Black Power, and the Politics of Race (Texas Tech University Press, 2012) earned a national book award from the National Council of Black Studies, 2013, and a State Book award from Nebraska. Dr. Ali Johnson is a member of the faculty at the University of South Carolina where she teaches African American and Africana Studies. Her research focus is social justice. Ali Johnson is the Acting Secretary of the national Black Power Archives Collective. Her Current research includes a study of the mid-west chapter of the Black Panther Party, and forced relocation of African Americans through urban renewal. She is co-writing a manuscript entitled Forgotten Comrades.

Categories:
African American History People in African American History

Tags:
19th Century (1800-1899) Education - Historically Black Colleges (HBCU) Gender - Men Government-U.S.House of Representatives House of Representatives - 1880s and 1890s Occupation-Attorney Political Party - Republican Party United States - North Carolina United States - Pennsylvania United States - Washington DC

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CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Johnson, T. (2007, January 18). George Henry White (1852-1918). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/white-george-henry-1852-1918/

Source of the Author's Information:

Benjamin R. Justensen, George Henry White: An Even Chance In the Race of Life (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2001); “White, George H.,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000372; “White, George H.,” Documenting the South, http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/whitegh/whitegh.html.