✊🏾 BHM 2026 Notables by QCT | Post #04

✊🏾 BHM 2026 Notables by QCT | Post #04
Long Haul Legends of the Black Second 🏛️📚🔥

Two tenacious leaders who defied erasure and carried the Black Reconstruction voice well into the 20th century:

• George Henry White (1852–1918)
  • Born free in Rosedale, NC (Warren/Anson area); rose from barber to lawyer
  • Served NC’s 2nd Congressional District (1897–1901)
  • Last Black Southern congressman of the post-Reconstruction era
  • Chaired House Post Office Committee — highest role held by a Black congressman until 1975 📬
  • Opposed lynching, disfranchisement & peonage — a form of debt slavery that trapped Black laborers in cycles of unpaid work and economic control
  • Delivered a powerful 1901 farewell speech forewarning Jim Crow
  • Later founded a Black colony in Whitesboro, NY; died in Philadelphia

• Robert Smalls Taylor (1846–1935)
  • Born enslaved in Cleveland County, NC; gained freedom post-war
  • Trained as an educator and served in NC House (1876, 1879)
  • Principal and newspaper editor who battled school funding inequity ✍🏾
  • Advocated for Black education during rollback of Reconstruction gains
  • Lived to age 89, quietly resisting white supremacy with lifelong service

🎉 Discover their stories this February during the
👉🏾 28^th Annual QCT Charlotte Pilgrimage Tour^sm 2026
🎟️ Reserve now at: charlottepilgrimagetour.com

#BHM2026 #BlackCharlotte #BlackSecond #GeorgeHenryWhite #RobertSmallsTaylor #QCTHeritage #CongressionalVoices #NCBlackHistory #PeonageExplained #HiddenHistory #EducationJustice #CharlotteTours #ResistEraseReclaim

📚 Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Henry_White
https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/white-george-henry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls_Taylor
https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/taylor-robert-smalls