Henry Plummer Cheatham

• Born: December 27, 1857
• Birthplace: Near Henderson, North Carolina
• Died: November 29, 1935
• Place of death: Oxford, North Carolina

Politician and philanthropist

One of the few African American members of the U.S. Congress in the 1890’s, Cheatham was an ardent supporter of President McKinley and of the Republican Party. For twenty-eight years, he served as superintendant of the Colored Orphanage of North Carolina.

Areas of achievement: Government and politics; Philanthropy

Early Life

Henry Plummer Cheatham (CHEET-uhm) was born a slave in Granville County, North Carolina. His mother was a plantation house slave. His father was rumored to be a prominent white citizen, which perhaps accounts for the financial help Cheatham received in his early years, allowing him to receive a thorough education. In 1882, he received an A.B. degree from Shaw University Normal School in Raleigh.

Upon graduation, Cheatham became a teacher. In 1883, he was appointed principal of the Plymouth Normal School for Negroes. That same year, he took the lead in founding the Grant Colored Asylum in Oxford, North Carolina, which in 1887 was incorporated as the Colored Orphanage of North Carolina. Cheatham married Louise Cherry; they had three children. Louise died in 1899 and Cheatham married Laura Joyner, with whom he also had three children. In 1884, Cheatham was elected as the register of deeds for Vance County, then reelected two years later.

Life’s Work

Surprisingly, Cheatham decided to run for the U.S. Congress in 1888. It was not an auspicious time for African Americans in national politics. With the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the arrival of Jim Crow segregation in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, African Americans steadily lost their political voice. They were disenfranchised through the poll tax, grandfather clause, literacy tests, and outright intimidation. Voting districts were redrawn (“gerrymandered”) so as to curtail African Americans’ political influence. This was the beginning of the decline of African American membership in Congress, culminating in the “Negroes’ Temporary Farewell” from 1901 to 1929, when there were no African American congressmen. The Fiftieth Congress, in session from 1887 to 1889, was the first Congress since 1869 to have no African American members. The North Carolina legislature clustered African American voters into the coastal Second District, which became known as the “Black Second.” The Black Second elected African Americans throughout Reconstruction. When Reconstruction ended, the North Carolina legislature began to rearrange the Black Second so as to dilute African American votes there as well.

Although he was little known, and his brother-in-law George White had long planned to run for Congress, Cheatham decided to seek the Republican nomination for the Black Second seat in the 1888 election. He faced a crowded field of ten candidates, but his erudition and eloquence struck a chord with voters, and he received the nomination. He faced a formidable Democratic opponent in incumbent congressman Furnifold Simmons. However, Cheatham was a skilled politician, if prone to inflammatory rhetoric: He warned African American voters that the Democrats wanted to revive slavery. As the majority of voters in the Black Second were former slaves, it was an effective pitch.

Cheatham was the only African American elected to the Fifty-first Congress (in session from 1889 to 1891), although two African Americans, John Langston and Thomas Miller, were seated in 1890 after contested elections. Cheatham served on the Education Committee. A staunch Republican, he favored the McKinley Tariff, a protectionist measure to help North Carolina’s tobacco farmers. He broke with the Republican Party, however, in supporting the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. In 1890, Cheatham was reelected with 52 percent of the vote. He was the only Republican member of the North Carolina delegation and the only African American member of the Fifty-second Congress. He received a prestigious appointment to the Agriculture Committee. At the Republican National Convention of 1892, Cheatham seconded the nomination of President Benjamin Harrison. Cheatham distributed the customary patronage but was embarrassed by the misdeeds of some of his appointees.

In 1892, Cheatham and George White contested the Republican nomination for the Black Second seat. Although Cheatham won a heated primary campaign, the infighting encouraged the entry into the general election of a third-party populist candidate. As a result, Cheatham lost his seat to white Democratic candidate Frederick Woodward, who took 45 percent of the vote; Cheatham received 38 percent and the populist candidate 17 percent. In 1894, Cheatham ran for his old seat but was defeated. Two years later, he lost the Republican nomination to his longtime rival White. White went on to win the election and was the last African American congressman before the “Temporary Farewell.” Cheatham was a vigorous supporter of William McKinley, with whom he had served in Congress. In May of 1897, newly elected President McKinley appointed Cheatham as recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia. In December, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt declined to reappoint Cheatham, who was embroiled in a scandal and accused of improperly executing the duties of his office. These accusations were investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but no formal charges were instituted.

Cheatham retired to North Carolina, where he spent twenty-eight years as superintendent of the Colored Orphanage in Oxford, which he had founded a quarter century earlier. During his administration, the orphanage expanded from 16 acres to 450 acres of land and to eleven buildings, including academic buildings, dormitories, a chapel, a dining hall, and a laundry. By the time Cheatham died in 1935, the orphanage was caring for almost two hundred children.

Significance

Cheatham was the lone African American in Congress from 1889 to 1893. With the end of Reconstruction in 1877, African American representation in the national political scene waned. Jim Crow laws, disenfranchisement, and redrawing of district lines all served to diminish the rights and political power of African American voters. Therefore, Cheatham’s success in the 1888 election came as a surprise. Although his political career ended under a cloud, he found a renewed calling as superintendent of the Colored Orphanage of North Carolina. Over twenty-eight years, he equipped the orphanage to assist the neediest of children. In 1965, the orphanage was renamed the Central Orphanage of North Carolina, and in 1986, the Central Children’s Home of North Carolina. The dining hall and auditorium were named for Cheatham. Through the 2000’s, the Central Children’s Home of North Carolina continued to provide residential group care for children who could not remain at home because of dependency, neglect, or abuse. The Central Children’s Home of North Carolina was entered in the National Register of Historic Places on August 31, 1988, as a pioneering institution among African American orphanages.

Bibliography

Anderson, Eric. Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901: The Black Second. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. History of the congressional district known as the Black Second, which produced the largest group of African American public officials in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Dray, Phillip. Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen. New York: Mariner Books, 2010. The story of the Reconstruction-era congressmen, before the “Negroes’ Temporary Farewell.”

Justesen, Benjamin. Broken Brotherhood: The Rise and Fall of the National Afro-American Council. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008. Well-researched, well-written account of the first national civil rights organization; Cheatham was a prominent member and the group’s intermediary with President McKinley.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Race of Life. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. Biography of White, the last African American congressman of the Reconstruction era. White was brother-in-law and chief political rival of Cheatham. This volume includes much biographical material on Cheatham.

Wisniewski, Matthew, ed. Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008. An official publication of the Congressional Office of History and Preservation, this massive volume profiles 121 African Americans who have served in Congress. With extensive and rare photographs.