
William Kerr Scott (17 April 1896-16 April 1958) was the Democratic Governor of North Carolina from 6 January 1949 to 8 January 1953 (succeeding R. Gregg Cherry and preceding William B. Umstead) and a US Senator from 29 November 1954 to 16 April 1958 (succeeding Alton Lennon and preceding B. Everett Jordan). He was the father of Robert W. Scott.
Biography[]
William Kerr Scott was born in Haw River, North Carolina in 1896, and he joined the US Army during World War I and was stationed in Kentucky. He went on to become a landholder and sheep and cattle farmer before serving as State Agriculture Commissioner from 1937 to 1948, as Governor from 1949 to 1953, and in the US Senate from 1954 until his death in 1958. Scott presided over a massive roadbuilding program and was moderately progressive on racial issues (although he later signed the "Southern Manifesto" in opposition to Brown v. Board of Education and opposed the civil rights acts), and he died in 1958.