Alexander Manly

Alexander (or Alex) Lightfoot Manly (May 13, 1866 – October 5, 1944) was an American newspaper owner and editor who lived in Wilmington, North Carolina.^[1] With his brother, Frank G. Manly, as co-owner, he published the Daily Record, the state's only daily African-American newspaper and possibly the nation's only black-owned daily newspaper. At the time, the port of Wilmington had 10,000 residents and was the state's largest city; its population was majority black, with a rising middle class.

In August 1898 Manly published a editorial objecting to lynchings^[2] and rejected stereotypes of black men as rapists of white women. He had earlier responded to a Rebecca Latimer Felton in Georgia who wrote about African-American males having relationships with white women. At the time, white Democrats were inflaming racial tensions and promoting white supremacy in a bid to regain power in the state legislature. They had lost control in the 1894 and 1896 elections to "fusion" candidates supported by a Republican and Populist coalition; these voters also elected Republican Daniel L. Russell as governor in 1896. When biracial fusionist candidates were elected to Wilmington's mayor and council, a secret committee of Democrats conducted the only successful coup d'état in United States history, now known as the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, and overturned the city government. They also ran the Manly brothers out of town, threatening their lives; a large mob destroyed the printing press and burned down the newspaper offices; out of control, it also attacked black neighborhoods, killing an estimated 30-100 people and destroying much of what freedmen had built in the city.

The Manly brothers were among the 2,100 blacks who permanently moved out of Wilmington after the riot, resulting in its becoming a majority-white city. The brothers moved briefly to Washington, D.C., helped by former Congressman George Henry White. He had moved to the city permanently after North Carolina passed legislation in 1899 to disenfranchise blacks in the state. Alex married Caroline Sadgwar at his house. Alex Manly and his wife moved to Philadelphia, where they had a family. Frank Manly moved to Alabama and taught at Tuskegee University. Alex Manly supported his family as a painter, but remained politically active; he helped found The Armstrong Association, a precursor to the National Urban League, and was a member of the African-American newspaper council.