Alexander Manly
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Alexander (or Alex) Manly (1866-1944) was an African-American newspaper editor in North Carolina in the late 19th century.
Starting in 1895, he edited the Wilmington Daily Record, the only African-American-owned daily newspaper in the country in its time. Manly denounced lynching. According to Manly, "every Negro lynched is called a 'big burly, black brute,' when in fact many of those who have thus been dealt with had white men for their fathers, and were not only not 'black' and 'burly' but were sufficiently attractive for white girls of culture and refinement to fall in love with them as is very well known to all." He also denounced white men like his ancestor, Gov. Charles Manly, who had children with African-American women while publicly opposing miscegenation. In an 1898 editorial, Alexander Manly had this to say about white men like his ancestor. "You set yourselves down as a lot of carping hypocrites; in fact you cry aloud for the virtue of your women while you seek to destroy the morality of ours. Don't think ever that your women will remain pure while you are debauching ours. You sow the seed-the harvest will come in due time." Around the same time, his paper's editorial stating that white women participated in consensual sex with African-American men outraged the state's Democratic Party.[1]
Alexander Manly's newspaper office was destroyed in the 1898 Wilmington race riots which occurred on November 10, 1898. He was forced to flee the city to escape being murdered by a bloodthirsty white mob. Manly relocated to Washington, DC. Little is definitively known about his later life, but he is known to have helped found the Armstrong Association, a forerunner of the Urban League.
[edit] References
- ^ News & Observor1898 Wilmington Race Riots
