George Henry White

Who was George Henry White?

George Henry White was an attorney, Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1897 and 1901, and a banker. He is considered the last African-American Congressman of the Jim Crow era, one of twenty to be elected in the late nineteenth century from the South.

The Democrats had regained power in the state legislature in the 1870s, but black candidates continued to be elected from some districts. After disfranchisement was achieved in new state constitutions at the turn of the century, no African American would be elected from the South until 1972, after the Civil Rights Movement and passage of federal legislation in the mid-1960s to enforce integration and protection of voting rights.

In North Carolina, "fusion politics" between the Populist and Republican parties led to a brief period of renewed Republican and African-American political success from 1894 to 1900. After White left office, no other black American would serve in Congress until Oscar De Priest was elected in 1928. No African American was elected to Congress from North Carolina until 1992.