Pope Family Papers, 1851-2000s

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Summary

Creator:
Pope (Family : Pope, Jonas Elias, 1827-1900?)
Abstract:

The collection documents the Pope family of North Carolina, including Jonas Elias Pope of Northampton County, a man of color who was free before the Civil War; his son, M. T. Pope, who was born in Northampton County and later lived in Henderson, Charlotte, and Raleigh; M. T. Pope's wife, Delia H. Pope of Raleigh; and their daughters, Evelyn Bennett Pope and Ruth Permelia Pope. M. T. Pope graduated in the first class of the Leonard Medical School of Shaw University; served in the Third Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers in the Spanish-American War; and practiced medicine and owned businesses and real estate in Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C. In the early 1900s, he was one of seven men of color registered to vote in Raleigh; in 1919, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor. Delia H. Pope taught school and was trained in the Madame C. J. Walker method of scientific hairdressing; Evelyn Bennett Pope was a professor of library science at North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University); and Ruth Permelia Pope was a teacher of home economics in Chapel Hill, N.C. The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal papers, educational records, and other papers of the Pope family. Included are letters written during M. T. Pope's Spanish-American War service; letters of recommendation, 1892-1899, 1910, and 1914, for M. T. Pope from lawyers, bankers, and college administrators; letters in the 1920s, mostly relating to land in Northampton County; and letters about insurance, real estate, and other financial matters. Financial and legal papers relate to Jonas Elias Pope's land and taxes in Northampton County, N.C. Also included are his certificate of freedom, 1851, and a copy of his will. A few items relate to businesses M. T. Pope helped start or partially owned. Many papers relate to Raleigh property and real estate; income taxes; insurance; stock; bank accounts; utility payments; and hospital bills. Other papers include educational records, biographical information and an autobiographical essay, diplomas and certificates, clippings, notebooks, autograph books, photographs, and other materials. There are also library science articles about African American bibliography by Evelyn Pope; scattered publications of First Baptist Church in Raleigh, the National Medical Association, and the People's Benevolent and Relief Association; and materials about the preservation and promotion of Pope House as an historic site and cultural institution.

Extent:
2000 items (3.0 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

M. T. (Manassa Thomas) Pope, physician, businessman, and politician, was born near Rich Square in Northampton County, N.C., on 24 August 1858. Both of his parents were free people of color. Pope's father, Jonas Elias Pope (1827-1900?), was a carpenter, farmer, and landowner. Jonas Elias Pope remarried late in life and had another son, Jonas Elias Pope II, who was born in 1898 and died in 1977.

M. T. Pope went to Raleigh, N.C., in 1874 to attend Shaw University. He finished his undergraduate education in 1879 and then studied at the Leonard School of Medicine at Shaw, graduating in 1886 in its first class. On 23 February 1887, Pope married Lydia Walden, who died on 10 September 1906. Pope lived and worked for a few years in Henderson, N.C., before settling in Charlotte about 1890. In Charlotte, Pope not only practiced medicine but also was a very active businessman, helping to establish the Queen City Drug Company and the People's Benevolent and Relief Association of North Carolina, an insurance company.

During the Spanish-American War, M. T. Pope served as first lieutenant and assistant surgeon in the Third Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers, an all-black volunteer regiment. After mustering out in February 1899, Pope moved to Raleigh where he established his medical practice on East Hargett Street, and, in 1900, built a substantial brick residence at 511 South Wilmington Street.

After the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900 and the passage of the suffrage amendment to the North Carolina Constitution in 1900, Pope was one of only seven men of color in the entire city of Raleigh to be eligible to vote and one of only 31 in Wake County. His political activity reached a high point in the April 1919 primary, when he ran for mayor of Raleigh at the head of a non-partisan African American slate of candidates along with Calvin Lightner (whose son, Clarence Lightner, became the first black mayor of Raleigh in 1973) and J. Cheek.

In 1907, M. T. Pope married Delia Haywood Phillips, who was born in 1880 and thus was 22 years his junior. To the couple two daughters were born: Evelyn Bennett Pope in 1908 and Ruth Permelia Pope in 1910. Both daughters received degrees from Shaw University and both went on to earn Master's degrees from Columbia University in New York, Evelyn in library service and Ruth in home economics. Evelyn also earned a Bachelor's degree in library science from the Hampton Institute.

M. T. Pope died in 1934 at the age of 76, and his wife followed him in 1955. Evelyn was by then on the faculty of the School of Library Science at North Carolina College at Durham (now North Carolina Central University), and Ruth was a home economics teacher in Chapel Hill. The two sisters, neither of whom married, kept up the family home in Raleigh and retired there in the 1970s. Evelyn died in 1995 and Ruth in October 2000.

Scope and content:

The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal papers, educational records, and other papers of the Pope family, an African American family of North Carolina. Letters of Jonas Elias Pope, a man of color who was free before the Civil War; M. T. Pope, physician, businessman, and politician; Delia H. Pope, who taught school and was trained in the Madame C. J. Walker method of scientific hairdressing; Evelyn Bennett Pope, professor of library science at North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University); and Ruth Permelia Pope, a teacher of home economics in Chapel Hill, N.C.; are arranged in chronological order, with a few groups of letters filed by subject at the end of the series. Whereas the majority of the correspondence was received without order, these groups of letters were bundled together or otherwise segregated from the general correspondence.

Included are letters written during Pope's service in the Third Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers during the Spanish-American War; a letter from George H. White, a member of the United States House of Representatives, about his effort to keep the Third North Carolina in the service; letters, 1921-1934, between M. T. Pope and officials of the United States Bureau of Pensions about his pension for military service; letters of recommendation, 1892-1899, 1910, and 1914, from various lawyers, bankers, and college administrators in Henderson, Raleigh, and Charlotte; letters in the 1920s mostly having to do with land in Northampton County, N.C.; and letters about home and automobile insurance, real estate transactions, and other financial matters.

The earliest financial and legal papers are papers of Jonas Elias Pope, mostly relating to land and taxes in Northampton County, N.C. Included is Jonas Elias Pope's certificate of freedom, 1851. Also included is a copy of Jonas Elias Pope's will. A few items relate to businesses M. T. Pope helped start or partially owned. Many papers relate to property and real estate transactions in Raleigh, N.C. Papers relating to property and income taxes; insurance for homes, automobiles, health, and life; stock owned; bank accounts; utility payments; and hospital bills are also included.

Other papers include educational records, biographical information, diplomas and certificates, clippings, notebooks, autograph books, and other materials of Pope family members. Financial and legal papers relating to the death and estate of M. T. Pope and Delia H. Pope were mixed with other material, such as funeral programs and obituaries, and are filed in Series 3. Other Papers rather than in Series 2. Financial and Legal Papers. Also included are few scattered publications of the First Baptist Church in Raleigh, the National Medical Association, and the People's Benevolent and Relief Association, as well as a funeral program for Jonas Elias Pope II, a certificate of appointment of James Walden as 1st Sergeant in Company E of the 2nd Regiment of United States Colored Cavalry, 1 August 1865, and stationery.

The Addition of May 2012 consists of information about the life and death of Ruth Permelia Pope, including a resume, an autobiographical essay, photographs of a birthday celebration, and homecoming materials; a photograph of Dr. Manassa Pope with his regiment from the Spanish American War and a copy of his death certificate; materials related to the preservation and promotion of Pope House as a historic site and cultural institution; and library science articles about African American bibliography by Evelyn B. Pope and other articles. The addition also includes a videotape produced by the Pope House Museum, titled An American Story.

Acquisition information:

Received from the Evelyn B. Pope and Ruth P. Pope Charitable Foundation of Raleigh, N.C., in February 2002 (Acc. 99178), and from Edna Rich-Ballentine in May 2012 (Acc. 101595).

Processing information:

Processed by: Linda Sellars, January 2003; Meaghan Alston, March 2021; Jessica Venlet and Nancy Kaiser, July 2022

Encoded by: Linda Sellars, January 2003

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser and Anne Wells, March 2021; Nancy Kaiser, July 2022; Dawne Lucas, May 2025

In 2017, we began using "white" as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions. We use this identity term so that whiteness is no longer the presumed default of the people represented in our collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Archivists have not removed racial terms "Negro" or "Colored" because we feel they provide important historical context about the materials and who created them and they facilitate the research process. We recognize that these terms also may cause harm and will periodically revisit our decision to include them. We recognize the complexity of this issue and welcome feedback on this decision at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

Immediate access to digital files is available for current University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill affiliates with an ONYEN. If you do not have an ONYEN, contact wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss access options.

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

No usage restrictions.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Pope Family Papers #5085, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu