Alex L. Manly (1866-1944)

Staff Person: Nanette Hardison
Collection: Alex L. Manly Papers 1898-1903, 1953-1984, Manuscript Collection #65

Alexander Lightfoot Manly was born on May 13, 1866, near Raleigh, North Carolina. He was an African American leader in the Republican Party in Wilmington, N.C. as well as the editor of the Wilmington Daily Record, which he co-owned with his brother Frank, during the 1890s. The newspaper was described at the time as “the only negro daily in the world.” The Record covered both local and national news and it championed the interests of the black community.

Alex Manly is mainly remembered for the editorial he published during the “white supremacy campaign” of 1898. He wrote this article in response to a speech that was given by a white supremacist named Rebecca Felton, who charged that black males were raping white women and that they needed to be suppressed. His response was that the whole black race should not be blamed for the folly of a few. He went on to argue that in many cases, the white women were willing participants in relationships until the liaison was discovered. Manly concluded the article by pointing out the hypocrisy of white supremacists who protested against black “rapists” while overlooking the many whites who debauched black women.

The article was reprinted in Democratic newspapers in order to convince white voters that blacks condoned rape and favored miscegenation. In Wilmington, armed whites gathered when black Republicans won Wilmington city offices. They denounced their rule and demanded that Alex Manly leave the city.  Alex Manly did escape Wilmington but once he left the city, the white mob, having not received a reply to their demand, ransacked and burned the Daily Record office on the morning of November 10, 1898, which would be known as the Wilmington insurrection of 1898.

Alex Manly would go on to marry Caroline “Carrie” Sadgwar and settle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He became a professional painter and played a part in the advancement of black unions. He was the leader of the African-American Newspaper Council and would go on to establish the Armstrong Association which led to the creation of the Urban League. He died in 1944.

Sources

Alex L. Manly Papers 1898-1903, 1953-1984, Manuscript Collection #65

Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, volume 4, L-O by William Stevens Powell, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991.