William J. White (journalist)
William Jefferson White | |
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Baptist |
William Jefferson White (December 25, 1831 – April 17, 1913) was an American civil rights leader, minister, educator, and journalist. He was the founder of
Early life
William Jefferson White was born at Ruckersville, Georgia on December 25, 1831, to Chaney and William White.[1] His father was white and his mother had African-American and Native American ancestors. He could pass for white, but self-identified as black.[2] His mother was a slave, but he never was.[3] He was taught to read by his mother. At the age of seven he started working in a cotton factory, where he worked for three years. He also spent a short time working on a wagon travelling rural parts of the state selling the factory's goods. In June, 1842 he went to Augusta, Georgia, where he lived with the family of Captain W. G. Nimms where he learned to write. He then took an apprenticeship as a carpenter for W. H. Goodrich, where he stayed for five years before moving on to cabinet making under C. A. Platt & Co. where he spent two years. He continued this work until 1867. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the blockade shut out printing supplies to southern printers, and White learned to make printers' wooden furniture, which helped him in his later journalism career.[1] He never formally attended college, but did take part in the courses at the Augusta Institute, which he helped found,[4] and in 1889 was given an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the State University of Kentucky.[1]
Career as an educator
During the early period of White's career, he began teaching. In 1853, he opened a secret night school at the home of Samuel Ketch. He started another school at the home of Deacon Anderson Hartwell in 1854, which remained open until the Hartwell family moved to Liberia. After that point, this school was taught on the premises of Judge W. T. Gould without Gould's knowledge. Later in 1854 he opened a third school at the home of Reverend Peter Johnson.[1]
His secular educational career continued after the end of slavery. On January 12, 1867, White was appointed educational agent of the
Ministry
White was baptized on October 7, 1855, at Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia, on September 19, 1858, he was licensed to exhort, and on February 16, 1862, he was licensed to preach. He organized a Sabbath School on January 8, 1859,[1] and he would serve as superintendent of the school for nine years. On April 1, 1866, he was ordained, and he began holding meetings on June 16, 1867, in what was known as McKinley's grove on a farm owned by Mary Bouyer McKinley and presided by Rev. George Barnes. On May 10, 1868, White and six others organized the Harmony Baptist Church on a lot next to McKinley's grove which they had bought from Mary McKinley. On the first Sunday of July, 1869, he officially became pastor of Harmony Baptist Church,[1] a church whose congregation had grown in part out of the Sabbath schools he led.[7] White also organized Watery Branch Baptist Church and Simonia Baptist Church elsewhere in Columbia County When the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia was formed in August 1870, he was elected treasurer, a position he held for fourteen years. He also served as missionary agent for the body.[1][7]
White was involved in a number of other Baptist organizations. He served as treasurer of the Shiloh Association from its founding in 1870 until after 1892,[1] and was co-founder and then president of the Colored Georgia Baptist Sunday School Convention for many years starting in 1872.[1] He was a corresponding secretary of the Missionary baptist Convention and of the Sunday School Convention of Georgia, and chairman of the Baptist Centennial Committee of Georgia.[7]
Journalism career
White was involved in printing and journalism as soon as the Civil War ended in 1865. He was an important contributor to the work of John T. Shuften Sr. in producing The Colored American and was secretary of the Lohal Georgian Printing Company, which produced the paper and its successor, The Loyal Georgian. He contributed to these papers and to a white Republican owned paper, the Georgia Republican all of which were based in Augusta. He also worked for several years as the Augusta correspondent of the Atlanta Republican.[1]
In 1880, White accepted the "Spurgeon Mission" of the
White's positions put him at odds with many other leading African Americans. In the 1880s,
White's support for the convention movement redoubled after the
In September 1906, the White wrote in the Georgia Baptist against the rioters involved in the
Personal life and death
He married Josephine in 1856,[2] Josephine died in 1903.[17]
White's son, Lucian Hayden White, became associate editor and assistant business manager at the paper.[1]
White died April 17, 1913, in Augusta.[18]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Pegues, Albert Witherspoon. Our Baptist Ministers and Schools. Willey & Company, 1892. p526-539
- ^ a b Davis 1998, p28
- ^ Jefferson, Alexander, and Lewis H. Carlson. Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW. No. 5. Fordham Univ Press, 2005. p5
- ^ Davis 1998, p104
- ^ Davis 1998, p103
- ^ Cashin, Edward J., and Glenn T. Eskew, eds. Paternalism in a Southern City: Race, Religion, and Gender in Augusta, Georgia. University of Georgia Press, 2012. p151
- ^ a b c Simmons, William J., and Henry McNeal Turner. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. GM Rewell & Company, 1887. p1095-1096
- ^ Davis 1998, p34
- ^ Davis 1998, p133
- ^ Davis 1998, p114
- ^ Brundage, William Fitzhugh. Lynching in the new South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930. Vol. 82. University of Illinois Press, 1993. p205
- ^ Grant, Donald Lee. The way it was in the South: The Black experience in Georgia. University of Georgia Press, 1993. p164
- ^ Davis 1998, p154
- ^ Conservative, in this context, refers to the anti-radical, pro-conciliation position of Washington and many others
- ^ Davis 1998, p170
- ^ Godshalk, David Fort. Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2006. p174
- ^ Davis 1998, p125
- ^ The Georgia Baptist Man, The New York Age (New York, New York) May 1, 1913, page 4, accessed February 6, 2017 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8794196/the_georgia_baptist_man_the_new_york/
Sources
- Davis, Leroy. A clashing of the soul: John Hope and the dilemma of African American leadership and Black higher education in the early twentieth century. University of Georgia Press, 1998.