Misplaced Pages

George W. Price

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
American politician This article is about the North Carolinian politician. For other uses, see George Price (disambiguation).
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources.
Find sources: "George W. Price" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2020)

George W. Price, Jr. (c. 1843 – October 22, 1901) was a laborer, sailor, and politician in North Carolina. An African American, he served in the North Carolina House of Representatives and North Carolina Senate during the Reconstruction era.

Enslaved from birth in North Carolina, he worked as a plasterer to build a number of Wilmington landmarks, including the Bellamy Mansion and Thalian Hall. In 1862, along with William B. Gould and others, Price ran from slavery and joined the U. S Navy. After Emancipation, Price was elected state representative and senator from New Hanover County, North Carolina.

Prior to the Civil War, Price was enslaved by George Benticott. During a rainy night on September 21, 1862, Price escaped with seven other enslaved men by rowing a small boat 28 nautical miles (52 km) down the Cape Fear River. Just as the dawn was breaking, they rushed out into the Atlantic Ocean near Fort Caswell. There, the USS Cambridge of the Union blockade picked them up as contraband. Though they had no way of knowing it, within an hour and a half of their rescue President Abraham Lincoln convened a meeting of his cabinet to finalize plans to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Price enlisted into the United States Navy on board the Cambridge, but may have later deserted. He corresponded with William B. Gould throughout the war. After the war, Price grew to have considerable influence within the Black and Republican communities and was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1869-1870 and the North Carolina Senate from 1870 to 1872.

Price was known as an orator, and frequently spoke at ceremonies around North Carolina. In 1881, he led a Black delegation to Washington D.C. where they protested the unfair distribution of federal jobs to President James A. Garfield.

See also

Notes

  1. They included William B. Gould, Joseph Hall, Andrew Hall, John Mackey, Charles Gile, John Mitchell, and William Chance.
  2. Gould records in his diary that "George P---e" was one of three men who deserted.

References

  1. "Price Family (fl. 1830s-1890s)". ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  2. ^ Gould IV 2002, p. 29.
  3. ^ Gould IV 2002, p. 350.
  4. Gould IV 2002, p. xix.
  5. ^ Gould IV 2002, p. xi.
  6. ^ Gould IV 2002, p. 113.

Works cited

  • Gould IV, William B. (2002). Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor (paperback ed.). Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4708-3.
Categories: