
Charles Brantley Aycock (1 November 1859-4 April 1912) was the Democratic Governor of North Carolina from 15 January 1901 to 11 January 1905, succeeding Daniel Lindsay Russell and preceding Robert Broadnax Glenn.
Biography[]
Charles Brantley Aycock was born in Fremont, Wayne County, North Carolina in 1859, and he practiced law and taught school in Goldsboro. He served on the school board before serving as a Democratic presidential elector in 1888, as US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina from 1893 to 1897, as a leader of the white supremacist Wilmington insurrection of 1898, and as Governor from 1900 to 1905. Aycock believed that the disenfranchisement of African-American voters was "desirable because it sets the white man free to move along faster than he can go when retarded by the slower movement of the negro." As Governor, Aycock presided over progressive reforms such as his policy of building a school every day he was in office, including 599 for whites and 91 for Blacks, justifying his support for Black education by declaring, "We are the thoroughbreds and should have no fear of winning the race against a commoner stock. An effort to reduce their public schools would send thousands more of them away from us." While he fought against lynching, he supported the state's "convict lease" system of slavery, and also increased taxes on corporations, regulated railroads, and passed child labor and temperance laws. He died in 1912.