The House That Dr. Pope Built: Race, Politics, Memory, and the Early Struggle for Civil Rights in North Carolina
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The House That Dr. Pope Built: Race, Politics, Memory, and the Early Struggle for Civil Rights in North Carolina Kenneth Joel Zogry A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: Advisor: Dr. James L. Leloudis Advisor: Dr. Donald G. Mathews Reader: Dr. John F. Kasson Reader: Dr. Jerma Jackson Reader: Dr. W. Fitzhugh Brundage Copyright 2008 Kenneth Joel Zogry ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract Kenneth Joel Zogry The House That Dr. Pope Built: Race, Politics, Memory, and the Early Struggle for Civil Rights in North Carolina (Under the direction of Dr. James L. Leloudis and Dr. Donald G. Mathews) In 1919, Dr. Manassa Thomas Pope ran for the office of mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina, heading a slate of all African American candidates for the city’s municipal positions. Born in 1858, Dr. Pope was part of a generation of college-educated black men in the South who came of age during Reconstruction, created successful businesses and professional lives, and were the backbone of political fusion in the 1890s. After the rise of white supremacy, which brought Jim Crow segregation and political disfranchisement, some African American men of Dr. Pope’s generation gave up political activity and/or left the South altogether. A significant group remained in North Carolina, however, and resisted white supremacy between 1900 and 1920 by registering to vote, forming political organizations, and insisting upon their rights to participate in the political process as an essential component of their manhood and citizenship. The memory of these events, though not included in standard white histories, remained strong in the black community and influenced the next generation who participated in the post-World War II Civil Rights Movement. The story of Dr. Pope’s life and the broader story of resistance to white supremacy after 1900 was uncovered through the discovery of his home in Raleigh, built in 1901. It remained in the family until his youngest daughter died in 2000, and serves a site of memory for this “lost” story, as it contains a remarkable collection of documents and artifacts dating to the 1850s which chronicle this era and this family’s history. iii Table of Contents List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………………...v Chapter 1 Do you have any family papers?………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2 A free person of color………………………………………………………………..18 Chapter 3 One of the foremost men of the race…has taken much interest in politics………….55 Chapter 4 Negro howling sheets…Democratic pie suckers…………………………………….89 Chapter 5 Certificate of Permanent Registration………………………………………………124 Chapter 6 We knew we wouldn’t win…………………………………………………………182 Chapter 7 Manassa Pope Lane………………………………………………………………....220 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….228 iv List of Illustrations Pope family on front porch, ca. 1915…………………………………………………….……4 Pope House front view, 1998…………………………………………………………….……4 Pope House rear view, 1998…………………………………………………………………..4 Family photographs and artifacts……………………………………………………………...9 Parlor looking into dining room…………………………………………………………….…9 Second floor bedroom…………………………………………………………………………9 1851 Freedman’s Papers……………………………………………………………………..20 House built by Jonas Pope, ca. 1853…………………………………………………………28 Permelia Pope………………………………………………………………………………..28 Estey Hall, Shaw University…………………………………………………………………46 Leonard Medical School, Shaw University…………………………………………….……46 Students at Leonard Medical School, 1886…………………………………………….……49 Dr. Pope’s 1886 diploma……………………………………………………………….……49 Walden family, ca. 1890……………………………………………………………………..50 Henry P. Cheatham…………………………………………………………………………..63 Samuel Vick…………………………………………………………………………….……63 Queen City Drug Company, Charlotte, ca. 1895……………………………………….……76 Incorporation papers, Queen City Drug Company…………………………………………..76 Millie Walden, ca. 1895……………………………………………………………………...78 Dr. Pope’s Charlotte letterhead………………………………………………………………79 People’s Relief and Benevolent Society newsletter, 1899…………………………………...79 “Negro Rule” cartoon………………………………………………………………………..94 v “Post Office” cartoon………………………………………………………………………...94 Col. James Young…………………………………………………………………………..105 Cartoon, 1898………………………………………………………………………….……105 Dr. Pope, Col. James Young, and Dr. Marcus Alston……………………………………...112 Medical bag and sword……………………………………………………………………..112 Broadside of 3rd North Carolina Volunteers………………………………………………..114 Stained glass window………………………………………………………………….……134 Call box……………………………………………………………………………………..134 Chandelier…………………………………………………………………………………..135 Corner of parlor…………………………………………………………………………….135 Pope House floor plan………………………………………………………………………136 Photo from Paris Exhibition………………………………………………………………...139 Photo from Paris Exhibition………………………………………………………………...139 Photo of family at Hampton Institute………………………………………………….……140 Dr. Andrew Watson Goodwin House………………………………………………………145 Dr. Pope’s 1902 voter registration card……………………………………………….……154 Cartoon of Samuel Vick and President Roosevelt…………………………………….……154 Cartoon from the Asheville Citizen…………………………………………………………154 Map of Raleigh, 1914………………………………………………………………………166 First Baptist Church………………………………………………………………………...167 Prince Hall Masonic Lodge………………………………………………………………...167 Frank Haywood Phillips……………………………………………………………………173 Delia Haywood Philips, ca. 1905…………………………………………………………..173 vi Evelyn and Ruth Pope, ca. 1912…………………………………………………………..173 “Disgrace of Democracy”…………………………………………………………………209 Dr. Pope, ca. 1919…………………………………………………………………………209 Street sign…………………………………………………………………………….……226 vii Chapter 1 “Do you have any family papers?” - Author to Pope Trustee, May 1998 In December of 1900, Dr. Manassa Thomas Pope and his wife, Lydia Walden Pope, purchased a small empty lot at 511 S. Wilmington Street in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Located in one of the small city’s most diverse and densely built areas, the lot they purchased was the last one available on the block. Over the following months, they built a modestly sized but well-appointed two-story brick house for their residence. Married for fourteen years by the time the house was finished, and in their early forties, the Popes represented a class of educated, accomplished, politically active people of color entering middle age at the turn of the twentieth century. Ironically, just as their house was going up, the world of opportunities and optimism in which they came of age was being dismantled, piece-by-piece, by the politics of white supremacy. Dr. Pope was part of a group of like-minded African American men in North Carolina and elsewhere in the South who shared similar backgrounds and who had worked for political and social advancement since the 1880s. These men were born in the 1850s and 1860s, and were largely spared the cruelties of slavery, either because they were born to free parents or because they were very young at the outbreak of the Civil War. They were college educated (a number at Shaw University in Raleigh), came of age during an unprecedented era of possibilities and opportunities for people of color, and became doctors, lawyers, ministers, and newspaper editors. They formed the backbone of a biracial political coalition known as “fusion” in the late 1880s and early 1890s, and many rose to prominent positions, either through election or appointment. Their ranks included state legislators, United States congressmen, and even an official diplomatic attaché to an African nation. After the crushing realities of Jim Crow segregation and political disfranchisement brought on by Democratic white supremacy at the turn of the century, a number of these men left the state for the North and the promise of a better life. A few remained, however, and individually and as a group made various attempts to resist the loss of their rights—in every sense creating an early civil rights movement. Their efforts began in 1902, with a statewide call for African Americans who could get around the new euphemistically titled “suffrage” amendment to do so and to register to vote. Dr. Pope was one of a relatively small number of men of color able to answer that call. As explained in chapters five and six, other activities of black men in the state during the first two decades of the twentieth century kept sporadic pressure on white supremacists, and in part laid the foundation for the “modern” Civil Rights Movement of the post World War II era. These efforts culminated in 1919, when Dr. Pope did something likely without equal in the early Jim Crow South—he ran as a candidate for mayor of Raleigh, the capital city of former Confederate state. Dr. Pope’s bold and potentially life-threatening run for mayor was the culmination of three decades of political activism. Yet his story has not been told, and the story of others who resisted can be found only in a few, specialized history books. Cloaked by white supremacist fables and myths, and closely guarded by family memories mistrustful of the ways of white historians, it took “discovery” of the Pope House to bring this particular story to light. 2 By the late 1990s, the once bustling neighborhood where the Pope’s built their house was unrecognizable. The surrounding homes, churches, and small businesses had all but disappeared, as the area had become a sort of no man’s land between the encroaching skyscrapers of downtown to the west, and what remained of the once prosperous African American neighborhoods