Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

Shared post from: The HistoryMakers

Activist and former head of the NAACP, Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., (Born in Oxford, NC), told in his HistoryMakers interview of his great-great-great grandfather, John Chavis, who was one of the earliest black educators in the United States.

Born in 1763 in North Carolina, John Chavis enlisted in the Revolutionary War in 1778 and served for three years in the 5th Virginia Regiment. In 1792, he began studying for the ministry at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) before moving to Virginia in 1795 to complete his studies at Washington Academy (now Washington and Lee University).

In his HistoryMakers oral history interview, Chavis said: “My great-great-great-grandfather… was a land owner… John Chavis is his name … and [he] had a school for blacks and whites. But after the Nat Turner insurrection and after the state passed these laws [prohibiting black Americans from preaching], he was barred from teaching blacks...

So, of course, in the tradition of the Chavis family, my great-great-great-grandfather set up an underground school in northern North Carolina, in Granville County, in a little part called Satterwhite Shop... In 1838, my great-great-grandfather had a buggy, a horse and buggy, and he was coming from the school one day.

And a group of white men stopped him, pulled him out of the buggy, and beat him to death. And not only did they beat him to death, but after killing, they hid his body from the family. And so my father told me that it was passed down through the generations where his body was buried… He was actually buried on a white man's farm called the Mangum Farm--[Willie Person] Mangum--who later became a United States senator.”

Several prominent North Carolinians were among Chavis’s white pupils, including Senator Willie P. Mangum, a founder of the Whig Party and 1836 presidential candidate, with whom Chavis developed a close and lasting friendship.

Images, L-R: John Chavis bust outside of Chavis Hall, Washington & Lee University; Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

Read More About Ben Chavis At The History Makers Here: https://www.thehistorymakers.org/bio.../benjamin-f-chavis-jr

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