George Henry White
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George Henry White (18 December 1852 – 28 December 1918) was a Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1897 and 1901. He was the last African American Congressman of the Reconstruction era, although his election came twenty years after the era's "official" end. By the time of his election, Reconstruction had long since been overturned throughout almost all of the South, making it impossible for blacks to be elected to federal office. After White left office, no other black American would serve in Congress until Oscar De Priest was elected in 1928; no other black American would be elected to Congress from the South until after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; Barbara Jordan and Andrew Young were elected in 1972, and Harold Ford, Sr. of Memphis was elected in 1974.
Born in Rosindale, North Carolina, White attended public school and then Howard University in Washington, D.C.. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1879, practicing in New Bern, North Carolina. He became the principal of the State Normal School of North Carolina.
White entered politics in 1880, elected to a single year in the North Carolina House of Representatives, and then to the North Carolina Senate in 1885. In 1886, he was named solicitor and prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of North Carolina, a post he held until 1894.
A delegate to the 1896 and 1900 Republican National Conventions, White was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1896 (over incumbent Frederick A. Woodard) and re-elected in 1898. As North Carolina Democrats changed laws and intimidated blacks from voting, he chose not to seek a third term and returned to law and banking. He delivered his final speech on January 29, 1901. "This is perhaps the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress," he said, "but let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heart-broken, bruised and bleeding, but God-fearing people; faithful, industrious, loyal, rising people – full of potential force." He was one of the earliest members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. White died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1918.
This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
