![[person in senate.png]] # Biography On June 19, 1885, the *Raleigh [[News and Observer]]* published a challenge to “any mail carrier in the State” from “W. Lee Person, of Rocky Mount (who) styles himself ‘the lightning pedestrian of Eastern North Carolina.’”^{[^1]} The challenge was taken up the following week by a Raleigh letter carrier, Jeff Denton.^{[^2]} A competition date was set for August 18, 1885, and the *News and Observer* blared near-daily advertisements for the “Great Walking Match” during the lead-up to the event.^{[^3]} Over the coming fifteen years, W. Lee Person retained his kinetic pace – as a prominent Republican operative, federal appointee, Newspaper editor, elected official, and civil rights advocate. The *[[News and Observer]]* — under the control of the white-supremacist Democratic operative, [[Josephus Daniels]]—would make Person a central target of the 1898 white-supremacy campaign and portray Person as a caricature of supposed Black criminality, avarice, and violence. Yet ultimately, it was a portrayal of Person that more closely reflected Daniels and his co-conspirators than Person himself. ***William Lee Person’s Political Rise*** In August of 1886, Person was elected to a two-year term as an Edgecombe County Republican executive for precinct 12.^{[^4]} Two years later in 1888, Person took an active role in determining the Republican slate of candidates for North Carolina. In January, Person was in Wilson as a member of one of two vying Republican executive committees in the Second District conferencing to resolve the split.^{[^5]} As Chairman of the Edgecombe County ![[Pasted image 20240609091928.png]] *News and Observer* advertisement of the race, August 5, 1885. Republican convention held on March 24, Person supported Edgecombe County Sheriff Joseph Cobb for the Second District congressional seat over Vance County’s [[Henry Plummer Cheatham]].^{[^6]} Cheatham, however, would go on to send an opposing set of Edgecombe delegates to the District Convention held in Weldon on May 30, 1888. In a hotly contested credentialing contest and vote, Cheatham supporters claimed the nomination.^{[^7]} The Weldon convention, however, did not end the contest for the Republican nomination in the Second—nor Person’s involvement in the fight. Two reports of the proceedings at Weldon emerged.^{[^8]} In one, Person’s Edgecombe delegation had not been seated and Cheatham had been nominated.^{[^9]} In the other report, Person had been elected as permanent Chairman “empowered to appoint a district executive committee” and George Allen Mebane was nominated for Congress.^{[^10]} On July 12, 1888, Person presided as Chairman over the pro-Mebane Second District Executive Committee, which met in Wilson to “denounce” Cheatham, support Mebane for Congress, and promise “undivided support to Harrison, Morton, Dockery, and the whole Republican ticket.”^{[^11]} Person’s executive committee supported the older and more experienced Mebane over Cheatham explicitly because the Second was “the only District in the whole State from which there is an assurance to elect one of our color to Congress” and, thus, the committee had a “duty [...] to elect a Republican who will represent us and our party.” Ultimately, however, Mebane withdrew from contention on September 29, 1888, and Cheatham defeated incumbent Democrat Furnifold Simmons.^{[^12]} Importantly, the struggle between the Cheatham and Mebane contingents in the Second District was an internal–if public–struggle *between* Black Republicans. Sidelined, an early white frontrunner in the race, Leonidas J. Moore, was left proclaiming his “support of the regular nominees of our party” and noting “we were disgusted at the manner in which the Weldon convention was conducted.”^{[^13]} Thirty-two-year-old Congressman-elect [[Henry Plummer Cheatham]] went to Washington prior to the beginning of his term to familiarize himself with the legislative process and to secure appointments for his constituents.^{[^14]} By June of 1889 Cheatham had eighty-six federal appointments to his credit^{[^15]} W. Lee Person secured an appointment as laborer in the Treasury Department, ^{[^16]} and in 1890 he was living at 2028 L Street nw, Washington DC,^{[^17]} three blocks from Congressman Cheatham’s own residence.^{[^18]}During this time he became a valuable member of the national Republican Party’s campaign team^{[^19]} and by 1890 he was working with Congressman Henry Plummer Cheatham, attempting to secure the appointment and bond of Sylvia Drake as the Rocky Mount Postmaster.^{[^20]} During this time, Person also likely would have first become acquainted with Cheatham’s friend and fellow congressman from Virginia, [[John Mercer Langston]].^{[^21]} (Langston was the great uncle of poet [[Langston Hughes]]).^{[^22]} Langston was older and far more prominent than either Person or Cheatham. For four decades his national reputation rivaled [[Fredrick Douglass]].^{[^23]} Langston’s abolitionist career began in the 1850s and, after the war, he had helped Charles Sumner draft what became the Civil Rights Act of 1875.^{[^24]} In 1890, after Sylvia Drake was unable to post the bond requirement, Congressman Cheatham recommended W. Lee Person to First Assistant Postmaster General, Joseph S. Clarkton for appointment to the position at Rocky Mount.^{[^25]} James G. Blaine, U.S. Secretary of State, was widely reported to have guaranteed Person’s bond.^{[^26]} [[Timothy Thomas Fortune|T. Thomas Fortune's]] [[The New York Age | New York Age]], however, reported this as a "mistake" noting "Mr. Blaine is not on the bond. Mr. Person’s bondsmen are Congressman Cheatham and Mr. [[James Hunter Young|]] [[James Hunter Young |James H. Young]], a Special Agent and Inspector under the Customs branch of the Treasury Department." In either case, Person then returned to Rocky Mount and served as Postmaster from 1890 to 1893.^{[^27]} Democrat Mayor [[Thomas H. Battle]] later praised Person’s service.^{[^28]} In 1890, both Cheatham and Person were delegates to the State Republican Convention in Raleigh, held May 23 at the Metropolitan Hall.^{[^29]} Cheatham went on to win re-election to the United States Congress, but Rocky Mount Postmaster W. Lee Person failed to be elected to the North Carolina Senate - his first attempt as a political candidate.^{[^30]} By 1892 Cheatham (now serving his second term in Washington) and Person were so strongly politically tied that Person’s assistant postmaster, Tarboro politician, Frank L. Battle, was evidently resentful, claiming Person’s political activities were “absolutely controlled” by Congressman Cheatham.^{[^31]} ` `Person’s contributions to Rocky Mount went beyond the political. In late fall of 1891, the first organizing meeting of the [[Mt. Pisgah Presbyterian Church]] was held at W. Lee and Rena Person’s house.^{[^32]} Six town lots were donated to the Church by the [[Rocky Mount Improvement and Manufacturing Company]], [[John H. Logan]], Trustee.^{[^33]} The Company was controlled by the wealthy Logan and Lyon families, progressive republican capitalists from Pennsylvania, who were the largest developers of Rocky Mount during the Fusion decade.^{[^34]} A schoolhouse was soon constructed, and for some years it was also used for church services.^{[^35]} By the summer of 1892, there were approximately 200 students attending the Logan High School ^{[^36]} Professor I.D. Hargett was the principal and [[Rena Person]] was one of the first two teachers at the school.^{[^37]} Rena was actively involved in managing the Post Office during Person’s tenure,^{[^38]} and in 1896 she was an applicant for Rocky Mount Postmistress, but Congressman George H. White ultimately recommended Prof. Hargett for the position.^{[^39]} In 1896, months after the U.S. Supreme Court made the *Plessy v Ferguson* ruling, Person, Cheatham, and [[John Mercer Langston]] worked to canvas the state of North Carolina in support of the party of Lincoln, Sumner, and Grant, as well as Person’s own candidacy for the North Carolina Senate.^{[^40]} Both Henry P. Cheatham and A. E. Holton, Chairman of the State Republican Executive Committee, loaned W. Lee Person money during his senatorial campaign.^{[^41]} That November, Person won his election amidst what amounted to a landslide victory for the Republican and People Party’s fusion politics in North Carolina.^{[^42]} On November 21, 1896, Cheatham came to Rocky Mount to attend the grand McKinley and Russel victory celebration in Battleboro. The Rocky Mount Excelsior Band provided musical selections and Person was a featured speaker–holding forth on the glorious Republican victory for about twenty minutes. The crowd, including many white people in the audience, responded with wild enthusiasm.^{[^43]} **William Lee Person’s Record in the North Carolina Senate** Writing in 1951, African American historian [[Helen G. Edmonds]] noted in *[[The Negro And Fusion Politics In North Carolina]],* that Person was “socially and economically attuned to the real problems of the working man” more than “any other state senator of his time.”[^44] His political speeches were popular with the working class of both races.^{[^45]} He was a “Radical Republican” for political equality, but he was also a masterful politician. His race-first Republican political leanings did not seem to hurt his standing with the white people in his hometown.^{[^46]} While serving in Raleigh, Senator Person fought for civil rights and economic justice. He introduced a bill to strengthen the N.C. anti-lynching law and provide restitution to victims - $1,000 for non-lethal attacks, if killed $5,000 to be paid to his legal representative.^{[^47]} He introduced a comprehensive bill to regulate insurance companies,^{[^48]}an early workers’ compensation bill to require corporations to pay expenses for employees’ physical harm suffered on the job,^{[^49]} and a bill to prevent convict labor leasing in competition with hired labor. ^{[^50]} He also introduced bills to prevent discrimination in passenger accommodations,^{[^51]}and to prevent discrimination in making jury lists.^{[^52]} In 1897, speaking from the senate floor, Person seconded the nomination of Jeter Pritchard to the U.S. Senate, on “behalf of 120,000 colored voters,” while lamenting the time was not yet ripe to nominate a black man for the office, but proclaiming that time would soon come.^{[^53]} ` `In 1898, Senator Person introduced a bill to make cohabitation between the races a felony.^{[^54]} The issue of miscegenation had long been an important debate within both races. Senator Person used his platform to force a vote on the issue and expose the hypocrisy between many of the white legislators' public positions and their private attitudes towards interracial sex.^{[^55]} ` `Despite Senator Person’s radically progressive economic and racial politics, the 1897 Senate session ended the *Raleigh Daily Tribune* concluded that Person was a popular and active legislator, noting that members of the Clerk’s staff presented him with a silk hat.^{[^56]} **William Lee Person and the National Protective Association** ` `During the 1890s Fusion Decade there were many economic and political movements organizing to protect various groups of working people. Quite a few organized under the banner “National Protective Association.” In 1892, one group organizing as the National Protective Association was led by Black Independent Republicans George E. Taylor and Fredrick Douglass. After they were denied a role at the Platform Committee of the National Republican Party, Taylor wrote “A National Appeal”* challenging the National Republican Party and President Harrison.^{[^57]} The following year he again attacked both the President and the Party at a Colored Men’s National Protective Association meeting held in June of 1893 in Chicago*.^{[^58]}* But another Colored Men’s National Protective Association* was unabashedly pro-Republican.^{[^59]} They challenged George E. Taylor and his “National Appeal,” claiming it was engineered by Democrats.^{[^60]} They held a separate conference and elected national officers in Indianapolis on October 20, 1892.^{[^61]} This faction was led by a prestigious group of African-Americans that included former and current Congressional Republicans with a grassroots connection to the southern Black political base (the black Districts in four southern States).^{[^62]} By 1895 this organization dropped “Colored Men” from its name and called itself the “ National Protective Association” (NPA).^{[^63]} ` `In 1896, Senator-elect W. Lee Person was an important promoter of the NPA at both the state and national levels. On December 17, 1896, the Eastern District of North Carolina Council 4,499 of the National Protective Association was established in Battleboro (in part due to the efforts of Person and his local Republican ally, former NC Representative Clinton W. Battle).^{[^64]} This NPA was actively organized in Rocky Mount during the 1896 national election cycle.^{[^65]} During the final week of October 1896, the *Raleigh Gazette*’s Rocky Mount correspondent, Weeks S. Armstrong, reported that “Prof. R.A. Caldwell, of the National Protective Association of the United States, lectured to a goodly number of our people last Wednesday night.” and that John Mercer Langston “made a rousing speech to our people last Saturday. Much good was done.”^{[^66]} After the Fusion movement's phenomenal success in the 1896 election, the NPA quickly expanded across North Carolina and the rest of the South.^{[^67]} In March of 1897, Warren C. Coleman, founder of the Coleman Manufacturing Company in Concord, NC , and possibly North Carolina’s wealthiest African American, was elected national President of a NPA by about 100 delegates meeting at the Philadelphia House in Washington, DC.^{[^68]} Two days after the NPA’s national meeting in Washington, Person introduced a bill establishing and incorporating the NPA in North Carolina. W. C. Coleman was the State Treasurer. Senator Person’s bill passed the General Assembly on March 5, 1897.^{[^69]} Reporting on the NPA in North Carolina, a correspondent for the *Washington Bee* succinctly described its mission: “throughout the entire country just prior to each national election to outline policies to be pursued by the Colored voters….. Plans for the overthrow of fraudulent election methods will be augmented, and funds provided for legal procedures against all who attempt to violate the right to suffrage.”^{[^70]} On the other hand, a conservative correspondent to the *New Bern Journal* took exception to the NPA’s mission ^{[^71]} Twenty of North Carolina’s most successful and prominent African-Americans chartered the North Carolina branch of the NPA.^{[^72]} Seven of these men were from Rocky Mount and Tarboro: newly appointed Battleboro Postmaster Clinton W. Battle; *Raleigh Gazette* circulation manager for eastern North Carolina Charles E. Spicer; former North Carolina State Senator Dred Wimberly; State Grand Master of the Royal Knights of King David, S.F.C. (Sandy) Hester: W.N. Wainwright; Rev. O.B. Alston; and, of course, State Senator W. Lee Person. ` `**Targeted by the White Supremacy Campaign** In August 1898, while Senator Person was canvassing his district for reelection, running as the Republican nominee for the 5th District’s North Carolina Senate seat, a secret political organization formed in Raleigh with one purpose: to institutionalize “white supremacy” at any cost. A core group, willing to engage in criminal activity to disenfranchise Black North Carolinians, consisted of: [[Furnifold Simmons]], Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee; [[James H. Pou]], who joined with Simmons to form the law firm of Simmons, Pou and Ward (to fight for white supremacy in the State and Federal courts);^{[^73]} and three editors of large daily newspapers; [[Josephus Daniels]] of the *Raleigh News and Observer*, [[Joseph Caldwell]] of the [[Charlotte Observer]] and [[John P. Kerr]] of the *[[Asheville Citizens-Times]]. The ringleaders, Simmons, Pou and Daniels, hatched a plan to clandestinely pay [[H.E.C. Bryant]], a novice young reporter and traveling salesman with the Charlotte Observer,^{[^74]} and to recruit editor John P. Kerr, to write false “investigative reports” about Negro Domination and violent Black people in Eastern North Carolina.^{[^75]} James H. Pou contacted his friend, editor Joseph Caldwell, and struck a deal to send Bryant to the Democratic headquarters in Raleigh to pick up his money and meet Simmons before going to investigate on the horrors of the Negro situation down East. H.E.C Bryant would later say this was the beginning of their Red Shirt campaign.^{[^76]} H.E.C Bryant published the results of his investigation into Senator Person in the Charlotte Observer on September 20, 1898. Bryant obtained a sworn statement claiming that Person, back in 1894, had promoted social equality and had “declared any Negro who voted the Democratic Party should be lynched”. A second “quote,” not attributed to anyone, falsely claimed Lee Person, when speaking at Mildred on September 12, 1898, said “Go to the elections well-armed with rocks in your pockets, clubs in your hands and carrying your pistols. And don’t allow any officer to arrest you until after you have registered until the day after the election. Unless you have stolen something or killed someone.” *^{[^77]}* The next day, on September 21, the *Raleigh News and Observer* reprinted H.E.C. Bryant’s false quotation of Person from the *Charlotte Observer* and put it in capital letters in a box on its front page.^{[^78]} The following day, a [[Norman Jennett]] caricature based on the same quotation appeared on the front page of the *News and Observer*.^{[^79]} Simmons used Democratic Executive Committee funds to print 100,000 copies of a Democratic election supplement to be distributed across the state in mailboxes and newspapers.^{[^80]} The four-page supplement prominently featured the lies about Senator Person on the front page, along with Norman Jennett’s now infamous “The Vampire Hovering Over North Carolina” cartoon.^{[^81]} In response the *People’s Paper* asked, “are they trying to incite a riot?”^{[^82]} Immediately after H.E.C Bryant’s lies were published, W. Lee Person responded to the editors of the *Charlotte Observer* and *News and Observer* demanding “in the name of justice” that they print his response rebutting the false allegations and calling Bryant’s reporting “false on its face.”^{[^83]} Neither Caldwell nor Daniels printed Person’s letter.^{[^84]} Person then sent his response to Marion Butler’s *Caucasian,* where it was published two weeks later on October 6.^{[^85]} Instead of a retraction, Dainiels doubled down on his attack on Person, and on October 16, published a second unsubstantiated report in the News and Observer , also in a box, claiming Lee Person was continuing to advise Negroes to “go to the polls with pistols and rocks in their pockets”.^{[^86]} Simmons and Daniels’ coup d’état strategy was to repeatedly plant rumors of a looming race war in the public mind, organize and incite bands of white people to proactively “defend” themselves against these black violence rumors, and to ultimately, if needed, wage an all-out race war against North Carolina’s minority black population. These two self-righteous men knew they held a white supremacy trump card, and they played it. **William Lee Person after the White Supremacist Takeover of North Carolina** After W. Lee Person’s defeat in the 1898 election, he remained in Rocky Mount, at great personal risk,^{[^87]} and continued to fight for political equality for his race. He was a poll holder in Rocky Mount during the 1900 Disenfranchisement Amendment campaign and was attacked at the polling place by a gang of local armed White Supremacists who started a race riot.^{[^88]} He was able to escape to Washington, D.C., and find employment,^{[^89]} and he also engaged in stump speeches for candidates in other states.^{[^90]} A few years later he returned to live in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he edited a newspaper and worked to overturn North Carolina’s Disenfranchisement Amendment.^{[^91]} He later moved to Hickory, opened a Fish Market,^{[^92]} and for many years continued to make political stump speeches in North Carolina and around the country on behalf of a free and fair ballot and the National Republican Party.^{[^93]} He returned to Washington D.C. and in 1932 he became the museum guide at the house where Lincoln died - the newly restored Petersen House, furnished with period pieces^{[^94]} - across the street from the Ford Theater. The same year he also loaned his personal collection of Abraham Lincoln photos to the Lincoln Historical Research Foundation of Fort Wayne, Indiana.^{[^95]} ![[Pasted image 20240609092056.png]] Cartoon by [[Norman Jennett]] in *The* *News and Observer*, September 22, 1898, 1. Person returned to Rocky Mount in 1936 to bury his wife, Rena, in the City Cemetery.^{[^96]} The year before Rena’s death, on June 28, 1935, the City sold [[Frank W. Davis]] (and others), 22 lots in the same cemetery, described in the Davis deed as a portion of the property conveyed to the City in 1915 by a deed recorded in Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Book 167 Page 583. The property was conveyed subject to the rules and regulations of the Rocky Mount Cemetery Committee.^{[^97]} And a few years later, when L.C. Kelly, Jr. discovered an old family cemetery on his newly purchased lot in Edgemont Terrace, the Rocky Mount Board of Aldermen passed a resolution authorizing Kelly to remove the graves to a suitable lot chosen by the city manager, L.B. Aycock. The new gravesite chosen for the remains of Nannie Parker’s husband, Jack G. Parker, was a plot in the northwest corner of this same cemetery. ^{[^98]} A couple of years after Rena Person’s death, widower W. Lee Person, now 87 years old,^{[^99]} transferred the Person family homeplace on the corner of N.E. Main Street and Holly Street to his two daughters, Helen Quay Person, and [[Marguerite Wimberly]] ^{[^100]} W. Lee Person died in Washington, D.C. in 1952 without fanfare.^{[^101]} His daughters, Quay and Marguerite, brought his remains home to Rocky Mount on the train and he was buried in the southern end of the City’s cemetery near Jack G. Parker’s gravesite^{[^102]} W. Lee Person’s sterling reputation in Rocky Mount during the 1890s and the local recollection of his service during that period faded even before his death—his legacy mutilated by the masterminds of North Carolina’s White Supremacy coup d’état who literally put false “violent language” into his mouth on the front page of the *News and Observer*^{[^103]}—using made-up violent acts and made-up “violent language” to incite real white-on-Black “violence acts.”^{[^104]} ------------ This brief sketch honoring the legacy of W. Lee Person, by necessity, exposes the depth and breadth of Josephus Daniels’ and Furnifold Simmons’ depravity. Their incitement of anti-black violence was not a dynamic result of “Red Hot Politics”,^{[^105]} or “the spirit of the times.”^{[^106]} It was a “...chunk enough Negroes in the river” strategy to overthrow democratic rule by force and to install a race-based oligarchy.^{[^107]} Later in life, [[Josephus Daniels]] continued to rationalize his earlier lies and the Red Shirt violence that ensued, tautologically justifying his own crimes by citing the false reports of Black threats and violence against whites, which he knew were not true .^{[^108]} With acknowledgment of this ugly historical reality, we can begin to more fully understand and honor W. Lee Person as perhaps Rocky Mount’s most important historical figure. To date, no rigorous biographical study of W. Lee Person has been published. [[Helen G. Edmonds]], in her seminal study, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901*, gives brief but important analysis of Person and his politics. Person also makes appearances in later histories of the fusion period and the Black Second–including Anderson’s *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901*, Crow and Durdens *Maverick Republican in the Old North Stat*e, and Justeen’s *Forgotten Legacy: William McKinley, George Henry White, and the Struggle for Black Equality*–*but his story is not the focus. Additionally three very brief local histories regarding W. Lee Person also exist: - Two studies undertaken in 2011, entitled *“*Early African-American Cemeteries In Rocky Mount, NC,” and “Breaking the Color Barrier: Early African-American Town Commissioners in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, 1897-1901,” contain brief biographies that downplay Person’s importance and accomplishments. - In the August 24, 1952 edition of the Rocky Mount Telegram, old-timer “Kip” Gupton recounted how W. Lee Person, acting as a poll holder guarding African-American’s ability to vote in the crucial 1900 disenfranchisement election was violently run out of town. It was during this election that a group of voters from around the Falls came into Rocky Mount and started what turned into a “white supremacy riot”. ^{[^109]} (Rumors also circulated that two negroes were killed in this attack.)^{[^110]} An accurate account of one of Rocky Mount’s most successful, prominent, and important Fusion Era citizens needs to be heard. The time to tell William Lee Person’s story is now. [^1]: “Observations,” *The News and Observer*, June 19, 1885, 4. [^2]: “Accepts the challenge,” *The News and Observer*, June 23, 1885. [^3]: ` `*The News and Observer*, August 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18, 1885. [^4]: “Edgecombe County Republican Convention,” *Greensboro North State*, August 19, 1886, 6. [^5]: “Committees meet,” *The Raleigh Signal*, February 23, 1888. [^6]: “A Rad Pow-Wow,” *Tarborough Southerner*, March 29, 1888, 3; Eric Anderson, *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901: The Black Second* (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 149. [^7]: “Republican Convention,” *Raleigh Signal*, June 7, 1888, 3; *see also* Anderson, *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901*, 149–50. [^8]: “Republican Convention,” *Raleigh Signal*, June 7, 1888, 3; “Proceedings of the Second Congressional District of North Carolina,” *Raleigh Signal*, August 30, 1888, 2–3. [^9]: “Republican Convention,” *Raleigh Signal*, June 7, 1888, 3 [^10]: “Proceedings of the Second Congressional District of North Carolina,” *Raleigh Signal*, August 30, 1888, 2–3. [^11]: “Resolutions Adopted by the Executive Committee at Wilson, N.C., July 12th, 1888,” *The Raleigh Signal*, August 30, 1888, 3. [^12]: [“To the Republicans of the Second Congressional District of North Carolina,” ](https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?broken=FbSXlJ)[*The Raleigh Signal*](https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?broken=FbSXlJ)[, October 18, 1888, 1.](https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?broken=FbSXlJ) [^13]: Leonidas J. Moore, *The Raleigh Signal*, July 5, 1888, 2. [^14]: “History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, ‘CHEATHAM, Henry Plummer,’” https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/C/CHEATHAM,-Henry-Plummer-(C000340)/. [^15]: “Our Representative,” *Washington Bee*, June 8, 1889, 2.; *Washington Bee*, June 22, 1889, 2; “History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, ‘CHEATHAM, Henry Plummer,’” https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/C/CHEATHAM,-Henry-Plummer-(C000340)/. [^16]: “Bad, Worse, Worst: The Postmastership at Rocky Mount,” *The State Chronicle*, April 1, 1890, 1; “Bad, Worse, Worst - The Postmastership at Rocky Mount.,” *The Daily Journal*, April 3, 1890, 1; “Bad, Worse, Worst - the Postmastership at Rocky Mount,” *New Berne Weekly Journal*, April 10, 1890, 1; “An Infamous Outrager,” *Wilson Advance*, April 3, 1890, 2. [^17]: ` `*Boyd’s Directory of the District of Columbia 1890* (Washington, D.C.: W.H. Boyd, 1890), 706, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100487531. [^18]: ` `*Id.* at 1023 [^19]: “An Infamous Outrager,” *Wilson Advance*, April 3, 1890, 2; *see, also* Anderson, *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901*, 228–29 (discussing Person’s close support of Cheatham in 1896). [^20]: An Infamous Outrager,” *Wilson Advance*, April 3, 1890, 2. [^21]: John Mercer Langston, *From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol* (Hartford, Conn, 1894), 501. [^22]: Leon F. Litwack and August Meier, eds., *Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century*, 2. [pr.], Blacks in the New World (Urbana, Ill.: Univ. of Illinois Pr, 1991), 126. [^23]: William Francis Cheek III, “Forgotten Prophet: The Life of John Mercer Langston,” PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1961, i-iv. [^24]: John Mercer Langston, *Freedom and Citizenship: Selected Lectures and Addresses* (R. H. Darby, 1883), 152. [^25]: “Sylvia Drake, the Colored Woman, Will Not Go in as Postmaster,” *State Chronicle*, April 18, 1890, 1. [^26]: “Political Notes,” *Staunton Vindicator*, May 16, 1890, 2. [^27]: Benjamin R. Justesen, “Black Tip, White Iceberg: Black Postmasters and the Rise of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1897-1901,” *The North Carolina Historical Review* 82, no. 2 (2005): 212. [^28]: Anderson, *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901*, 169. [^29]: “Furches, Of Iredell,” *Weekly Charlotte Observer*, September 12, 1892, 3. [^30]: “History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, ‘CHEATHAM, Henry Plummer,’” https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/C/CHEATHAM,-Henry-Plummer-(C000340)/; Stephen W. Raper, “Breaking the Color Barrier: Early African-American Town Commissioners in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, 1897-1903,” City of Rocky Mount NC, March 2011. [^31]: Benjamin R. Justesen, *George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Race of Life* (LSU Press, 2001), 163.  [^32]: “Mount Pisgah church dedicated,” *Synod of Catawba Argus* 6, no. 2 (July 1962), 4; The Rocky Mount Improvement & Manufacturing Co., “Rocky Mount, North Carolina” (Myers, Shinkle & Co., 1892); “Mount Pisgah Church Dedicated,” 4.: Notes of author’s telephone interview with Quay Wimberly Whitlock conducted Jan. 9, 2023. [^33]: “Mount Pisgah church dedicated,” *Synod of Catawba Argus* 6, no. 2 (July 1962), 4; Edgecombe County Register of Deeds Book 76, Page 426. [^34]: “A prospector’s view of Rocky Mount, North Carolina,” *The State Chronicle*, September 29, 1892, 4; *see, also, e.g.*, *News and Observer*, May 27, 1892, 3 (one of numerous newspaper advertisements of Rocky Mount by Logan’s company during this period). [^35]: “Mount Pisgah Church Dedicated,” 4. [^36]: “Local Dots,” *The Phoenix*, June 14, 1894, 3. [^37]: “Mrs. Cara Bunn Sessoms, one of Rocky Mount’s oldest citizens, tells about early schools here,” *Rocky Mount Telegram*, June 29, 1958, 11. [^38]: Quay Wimberly Whitlock, interview by the author, January 9, 2023. [^39]: Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” *The Gazette*, December 12, 1896, 3. [^40]: Anderson, *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901*, 228–29; “They Will Participate,” *Evening Star*, October 12, 1896, 2; Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” *The Gazette*, October 31, 1896, 3. [^41]: Edgecombe County Register of Deeds Book. 88, page 74. [^42]: ` `*See* Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” *The Gazette*, November 28, 1896, 3; Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” *The Gazette*, December 5, 1896, 3; Eric Anderson, *Race And Politics In North Carolina*,1872-1901, 238-39. [^43]: Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” November 28, 1896, 3. [^44]: Helen G. Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901*, 104-5. [^45]: Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” November 28, 1896, 3. [^46]: H.E.C. Bryant, “North Carolina Newspapering,” *The News and Observer*, January 18, 1931, 14. [^47]: Helen G. Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901*, 104; “Senator Person’s Lynching Bill,” *The North Carolinian*, January 21, 1897, 5. [^48]: Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina*, 104; “Letter to Senator Person,” *The Raleigh Daily Tribune*, February 5, 1897, 7. [^49]: Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina*, 105. [^50]: Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina*, 105; “Letter to Senator Person,” *The Raleigh Daily Tribune*, February 5, 1897, 7. [^51]: Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina*, 105; “Home folks,” *The Wilmington Messenger*, February 5, 1897, 2. [^52]: Edmonds, *The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina*, 105; “The Legislature,” *The Wilmington Messenger*, February 21, 1897, 1. [^53]: ` `“The vote for Senator,” *The Semi-Weekly Messenger*, January 21, 1897, 1; “Letter To Senator Person,” 7. [^54]: William Lee Person, “Democratic papers will not correct,” *The Caucasian*, October 6, 1898, 1; “To Protect Morals,” *The Wilmington Messenger*, February 19, 1897, 1. [^55]: “Democratic papers will not correct,” *The Caucasian*, October 6, 1898, 1. [^56]: \* “Local News,” *The Raleigh Daily Tribune, March 13, 1897.* [^57]: “To redress wrongs, Negroes want a plank in the Republican platform,” *Chicago Tribune*, June 5, 1892, 10. [^58]: Anna R. Paddon and Sally Turner, “African Americans and the World’s Columbian Exposition,” *Illinois Historical Journal* 88, no. 1 (1995): 19-20; “Asked to Stay Away,” *The Inter Ocean*, June 28, 1893, 7. [^59]: ` `“Address to the Country,” *The Indianapolis Journal*, October 20, 1892, 2. [^60]: “A Democratic side show,” *Boonville Standard*, October 7, 1892, 2. [^61]: “A right move among the colored people,” *The Progressive Farmer*, October 29, 1895, 4. [^62]: Anderson, *Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901*, 340-341 [^63]: “A right move among the colored people,” *The Progressive Farmer*, October 29, 1895, 4. [^64]: W.S. Mitchell, “The Meeting of the N.P.A. Association of America of the Eastern District North Carolina - A Harmonious Meeting,” *The Gazette*, January 9, 1897, 3. [^65]: “N.P.A. of U.S.A.,” *The Raleigh Daily Tribune*, May 12, 1897, 8; “National Protective Association,” *The Raleigh Daily Tribune*, January 23, 1897. [^66]: Weeks S. Armstrong, “Rocky Mount Grits,” *The Gazette*, October 31, 1896, 3. [^67]: “They will confer in convention as to means of elevation their race,” *The Raleigh Daily Tribune*, May 13, 1897, 1. [^68]: “Phila. House Meeting,” *Evening Star*, March 3, 1897, 17; “That Rocky Mount speech,” *The Semi-Weekly Messenger*, December 21, 1897, 3. [^69]: North Carolina General Assembly, Chapter 101 of the Private Laws of 1897, https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p249901coll22/id/210222 [^70]: “Negros eyes are opened,” *Washington Bee*, May 8, 1897, 5. [^71]: “Mistakes of the Negro,” *Daily Journal*, August 1, 1897, 2. [^72]: North Carolina General Assembly, Section 1 of Chapter 101 of the Private Laws of 1897, https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p249901coll22/id/210222 [^73]: “Simmons, Pou and Ward, Attorneys at Law,” *The Morning Post*, March 6, 1898, 5; “Will move here,” *News and Observer*, October 23, 1897, 8. [^74]: H.E.C. Bryant, “North Carolina Newspapering,” *The News and Observer*, August 10, 1930, 7. [^75]: J.P. Kerr, letter to the editor, *Webster’s Weekly*, October 6, 1898, 8. [^76]: H.E.C. Bryant, “North Carolina Newspapering,” *The News and Observer*, August 10, 1930, 7. [^77]: “Lee Person,” *The Charlotte Observer*, September 20, 1898, 2; William Lee Person, “Democratic papers will not correct,” *The Caucasian*, October 6, 1898, 1. [^78]: “Should be lynched,” *The News and Observer*, September 21, 1898, 1; Daniels, *Editor in Politics*, 287; “Listen, white men!” *The Tarborough Southerner*, November 1, 1894, 3; *Tarborough Southerner*, November 1, 1894, 3. [^79]: ` `*The* *News and Observer*, September 22, 1898, 1. [^80]: ` `*The* *News and Observer*, September 22, 1898, 1; Daniels, *Editor in Politics*, 284. [^81]: “Supplement,” *Webster’s Weekly*, October 6, 1898, 1. [^82]: “Are they trying to incite riot?,” *The People’s Paper*, October 7, 1898, 2. [^83]: William Lee Person, “Democratic papers will not correct,” *The Caucasian*, October 6, 1898, 1; *Statesville Semi-Weekly Landmark*, October 11, 1898, 6 (noting that Person wrote *News and Observer* with his response). [^84]: William Lee Person, “Democratic papers will not correct,” *The Caucasian*, October 6, 1898, 1. [^85]: William Lee Person, “Democratic papers will not correct,” *The Caucasian*, October 6, 1898, 1; “Supplement.,” 5. [^86]: “Poor white men and Negroes,” *The News and Observer*, October 16, 1898, 5. [^87]: “State press,” *The Wilmington Messenger*, November 30, 1898, 2. [^88]: “I’m thinking by an old reporter,” *Rocky Mount Telegram*, August 24, 1952, 4. [^89]: “City paragraphs.,” *The Colored American*, September 1, 1900, 16. [^90]: ` `*Id*. [^91]: “What has caused the change?,” *The North Carolinian*, October 23, 1902, 4. [^92]: “Lee Person better,” *Hickory Daily Record*, April 12, 1919, 1. [^93]: “Hickory Negro speaker in deal with G.O.P. leaders,” *The Lincoln County News*, October 25, 1920, 1. [^94]: “Colored guide praised by whites,” *The Black Dispatch*, September 29, 1932, 8. [^95]: “Lincoln relics group to be in exhibition,” *The San Francisco Examiner*, June 30, 1932, 2. [^96]: Rena J. Person, death certificate, January 20, 1936, North Carolina State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, copy on file with the Edgecombe County, North Carolina, Register of Deeds. [^97]: Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Book 342, Page 172. [^98]: Minutes of the Rocky Mount Board of Aldermen Meeting, Book 1939, 163-164. [^99]: “Colored guide praised by whites,” *The Black Dispatch*, September 29, 1932, 8. [^100]: Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Book 532, Page 17. [^101]: NAACP Crisis Magazine, October 17, 1952. [^102]: ` `Quay Wimberly Whitlock, interview by the author, January 9, 2023. [^103]: ` `*The News and Observer*, September 22, 1898, 1. [^104]: “Mr. Bryant couldn’t make it as bad as it is,” *Statesville Record and Landmark*, September 23, 1898, 6; Daniels, *Editor in Politics*, 292. [^105]: “Red Hot Politics,” *The Charlotte Observer*, February 3, 1952, 55. [^106]: Daniels, *Editor in Politics*, 253, 622. [^107]: ` `*See* footnotes 73-76, *supra*; *see also* Daniels, *Editor in Politics*, 287. [^108]: Daniels, *Editor in Politics*, 253; LeRae Umfleet, *Democracy on the Line: Hope, Hostility & Lasting Legacies of 1898 Wilmington*, produced by the North Caroliniana Society, February 1,* 2022, https://youtu.be/X2qydqQ\_V3c. [^109]: “I’m thinking by an old reporter,” *Rocky Mount Telegram*, August 24, 1952, 28; Quay Wimberly Whitlock, interview by the author, January 9, 2023. [^110]: “The underground,” *Rocky Mount Telegram*, September 28, 1955, 4.