William Thomas Scott

William Thomas Scott (1839–1917) was a prominent business and political leader in Cairo, Illinois.[1][2] Scott was briefly the first African American presidential nominee in the United States.[1][3]

Early life

William Thomas Scott, or Billy Scott, was born in Newark, Ohio, on April 28, 1839 to Lucy Scott and his father, whose name is unknown.[1] He grew up in a family that included his grandfather, Samuel Scott, and his five siblings, Henry, Hiram, Wilson, Ann, and Jane.[1] He received training to be a barber through a nearly ten year long apprenticeship to Henry Robinson.[1] He also worked briefly on the riverboats on the Ohio River.[1] In 1863, Scott enlisted in the Union Navy and served for an 18 month tour on the USS Clara Dolsen as a wardroom steward in Cairo, Illinois, which was the Union Army’s headquarters during the Civil War.[1]

Personal life

Scott married Nellie in Cincinnati in 1861.[2] Nellie gave birth to four children, three of whom survived until adulthood. Their children were named William, Wilmina, A.D., and Jessie. Wilmina died shortly before her first birthday in 1865.[4][1] After Nellie died in 1871 due to complication with Jessie's childbirth, Scott married his second wife, Lizzineky Jenkins of Massac County on April 22, 1872 in the town of Metropolis.[1] Jessie died in 1876, at the age of six.[1]

Business career

While he learned the barber trade in Ohio, he never practiced it until he got to Cairo.[1] Within a year of being discharged from the Army, Scott opened a saloon in Cairo that served both black and white patrons.[1] Soon after, Scott opened the Metropolitan Hotel, advertised as “the only first class place of entertainment in the West for the accommodation of colored guests,” fully equipped with a billiard parlor, ice cream parlor, and a dancehall.[1] He also became a bondsman and dabbled in the liquor and gambling industry.[1] Scott later in life also became the publisher and editor of what could have very well been the first African American daily Newspaper, the Cairo Gazette.[1][5][6]

Political career

When African American people were granted the right to vote in 1870, Scott was already a leading member of the Republican Party in Cairo.[2] Scott ran for City Marshall of Cairo in 1871 and received around 30% of the Republican votes (which was almost the entire African American voter population at the time), but he did not win.[1] He later became a Democrat and helped build the National Negro Liberal Party (NNLP).[1][6][2] In 1890, he became the president of the National Negro Democratic League (NNDL) as well as the Negro Bureau within the National Democratic Party.[1][2] He was also the founder and president of the National Negro Anti Imperialist, Anti Expansion, Anti Trust, and Anti Lynch League starting in 1899.[2]

While many histories have erroneously proclaimed George Edwin Taylor the first African American presidential nominee put forward by the NNLP, it was in fact William Thomas Scott.[1] He was forced to step aside and was removed from the party's ticket, however, when his scandalous past in the "vice trades" came to light.[3][1][2] Despite multiple arrests for bootlegging and running houses of prostitution, he remained popular to the people of Cairo as an activist and a journalist.[1] He held many high-status positions in the Bureau until 1915.

Death

Scott died on January 23, 1917 in Springfield, Illinois.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Mouser, Bruce L. (2014-10-30). A Black Gambler’s World of Liquor, Vice, and Presidential Politics: William Thomas Scott of Illinois, 1839–1917 (1 ed.). University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299301842.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Mouser, Bruce L. (2012-01-02). "William Thomas Scott (1839-1917) •". Black Past. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  3. ^ a b "Gambler and Politician William Thomas Scott Was African American Presidential Candidate in 1904". University of Wisconsin Press Blog. October 2014. Retrieved 2024-09-08.
  4. ^ "African American Politics and Community in Cairo and Vicinity, 1863-1900". www.lib.niu.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-13.
  5. ^ Bridges, Roger D. (1981). "Equality Deferred: Civil Rights for Illinois Blacks, 1865-1885". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 74 (2): 82–108. ISSN 0019-2287.
  6. ^ a b Writer, Bobbi Booker Tribune Staff (2015-01-23). "Bio defines first Black nominated for U.S. president". The Philadelphia Tribune. Retrieved 2024-05-13.