James H. Hayes

James H. Hayes
James H. Hayes
Born	1855/1858; Richmond, Virginia
Died	January 28, 1917; Washington, D.C.
Education	Howard University School of Law
Occupation(s)	lawyer, civil rights activist

James H. Hayes (1855/1858 – January 28, 1917) was an American lawyer and civil rights activist primarily active in Richmond, Virginia. Hayes taught in Richmond schools and co-founded the African-American newspaper the Richmond Planet in the early 1880s, before he left to attend Howard University School of Law. Following his graduation, Hayes returned to Richmond and served on the Richmond City Council from 1886 to 1890.

After moving to Washington, D.C., around 1898, Hayes remained active in Virginia politics, filing lawsuits which challenged voter restrictions in the 1902 Virginia State Constitution. He was also active in the national civil rights movement, drawing attention for his militant statements and opposition to Booker T. Washington.

Biography

Hayes was born in 1855 or 1858 in Richmond, Virginia.^[1]^[2] He attended and graduated from the Richmond Colored Normal School.^[3]

Career in Richmond

By the 1880s, he was working as a teacher at the Navy Hill School in Richmond. In 1882, Hayes was promoted to principal of the Valley School,^[4] for a one year term from 1883-1884. Hayes was one of three African American men to be made principles of schools in Richmond for that year.^[3] While Hayes was president, Maggie Mitchell (later Maggie Walker) began working at the Valley School.^[5] He was removed^[a] at the end of the term, after the political majority on the school board shifted to the Democratic Party, and continued to teach in the school system.^[6]

In 1883, Hayes was involved in the founding of the Richmond Planet, an African-American newspaper. He was one of the first reporters on the paper's staff.^[7]^[8] Also that year Hayes was involved in the foundation of the Acme Literary Association, which aimed to hold public discussions and lectures on "questions of vital importance". He served as the organization's first president.^[9] He left Richmond in 1884,^[10] to enter the Howard University School of Law. Hayes graduated from Howard in 1885,^[11] at the top of his class.^[12]

Hayes returned to Richmond, where he was elected to a seat on the Richmond City Council in 1886,^[11] representing the Jackson Ward.^[13] While on the City Council, Hayes was involved in the chartering of the Lynchburg Baptist Seminary (now known as the Virginia University of Lynchburg).^[14]

He lost re-election in 1890. The editor of the Richmond Planet, John Mitchell Jr., supported the candidate who defeated him. While Mitchell had been editor and held de facto control of the paper since 1884, Hayes and co-founders R. A. Paul and E. A. Randolph retained their ownership shares. Shortly after losing re-election, Hayes and Paul sued Mitchell over control of the paper. While the case was dismissed, the paper went bankrupt in 1892. Hayes, Paul, and Randolph sought to purchase it at auction over Mitchell, but were unsuccessful.^[8]

Hayes ran unsuccessfully against Mitchell to be a city alderman in 1892.^[8] He also wrote for the St. Luke Herald, edited the Negro Advocate, and was an attorney for the Independent Order of St. Luke.^[15]

Later career

Hayes moved to Washington, D.C., around 1898.^[16] He remained active in Virginia politics, for instance protesting the inclusion of a discriminatory poll tax and literacy test in the 1902 Virginia State Constitution.^[11]^[17] Hayes was involved in filing lawsuits against the Constitution,^[13]^[18] which were dismissed by the Supreme Court of Virginia.^[19]

Hayes wrote a charter for the St Luke Penny Savings Bank (founded 1903), which Maggie Walker became the first president of, making her the nation's only female bank president.^[20]

In 1903,^[b] Hayes co-founded the National Negro Suffrage League (NNSL), which he also served as the president of.^[21]^[23] Booker T. Washington felt Hayes and the NNSL were too radical, and he initially encouraged the African-American press to negatively report on the organization, and switching to denying the organization any coverage after about a year.^[24]

On the national level, Hayes became known for his opposition to Booker T. Washington's approach to civil rights advocacy.^[12]^[25] Historian August Meier described Hayes as one of two Southern lawyers who Meier knew openly opposed Washington.^[21]

In January 1903, Hayes gave a lecture on "The Disenfranchisement of the Afro-Americans of Virginia and What They Have Done to Resist It," in which he advocated for "if necessary stand[ing] up for your rights and be[ing] killed for standing up", and warned that "the oppressing, shooting, murdering, burning, lynching, jim crowing, and disenfranchising of the Negro will breed a race of Nat Turners, and the sword and torch will devastate and dissolve the South."^[18] This speech drew national attention for its seeming militant bent.^[18]^[26]

Hayes represented Virginia at the 1903 National Negro Suffrage Convention at the Bridge Street Methodist Church in Brooklyn, and later that year he was named a national organizer of the National Afro-American Council (AAC).^[23] In 1904, he met with US President Theodore Roosevelt as the head of the NNSL.^[27] The NNSL became less influential after 1904, and many members joined the AAC instead.^[28] During the 1912 presidential election, Hayes was named the director of the Bull Moose Party's "Colored Bureau".^[29]

Personal life

Hayes and his wife, Julia Harris,^[5] had at least two sons, including George Edward Chalmer Hayes,^[16]^[30] and a son who died in 1916 while attending Howard University.^[13]

James Hayes died on January 28, 1917, in Washington.^[31] His funeral was held on February 6, in Richmond.^[30]

References

Notes

^ Some sources state that Hayes was fired from the school district.^[5]
^ Some secondary sourcing dates the foundation to the organization to 1902,^[21] but contemporary reports on the creation of the National Negro Suffrage League date from 1903.^[22]

Citations

^ Foltinek, Hoepker & Horn 2025.
^ Chesson 1982, p. 198.
^ ^a ^b Green 2016, p. 80.
^ Alexander 2002, pp. 22–23.
^ ^a ^b ^c Marlowe 2003, p. 29.
^ Green 2016, pp. 168–169.
^ Alexander 2002, p. 28.
^ ^a ^b ^c Hoffman 2017, p. 119.
^ Marlowe 2003, p. 27.
^ Alexander 2002, p. 31.
^ ^a ^b ^c Smith Jr. 1999, p. 264.
^ ^a ^b Alexander 2002, p. 16.
^ ^a ^b ^c "James H. Hayes Dead". The Afro-American. 1917-02-10. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-05-09 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "History". Virginia University of Lynchburg. Retrieved 2025-05-09.
^ Marlowe 2003, pp. 29, 86.
^ ^a ^b "George E. C. Hayes Papers, 1922-1956: Finding Aid" (PDF). The Historical Society of Washington, D. C. August 7, 1997.
^ Hoffman 2017, pp. 130–131.
^ ^a ^b ^c Alexander 2013, pp. 197–199.
^ Randolph & Tate 2003, p. 106.
^ Marlowe 2003, p. 91.
^ ^a ^b ^c Meier 1988, p. 237.
^ "Roosevelt Faction: Lost in National Negro Suffrage League". The Journal. 1903-12-16. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-05-11.
^ ^a ^b Alexander 2013, pp. 204, 210, 217.
^ Factor 1970, pp. 312–313.
^ Harlan 1986, pp. 39–41.
^ Carle 2015, pp. 112–113.
^ Factor 1970, p. 315.
^ Factor 1970, p. 326.
^ Gable 1978, p. 78.
^ ^a ^b "Washington Letter". The New York Age. 1917-02-08. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-09 – via Newspapers.com.
^ "James H. Hayes Dead". Times Herald. 1917-01-29. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-05-09.

Bibliography

Alexander, Ann Field (2002). Race man : the rise and fall of the "fighting editor," John Mitchell, Jr. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-2116-7.
Alexander, Shawn Leigh (2013). An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-2244-9.
Carle, Susan D. (2015). Defining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880-1915. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-023524-6.
Chesson, Michael B. (1982). "Richmond's Black Councilmen, 1871–1896". In Rabinowitz, Howard (ed.). Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era. University of Illinois Press. pp. 191–222. ISBN 0-252-00972-X.
Factor, Robert L. (1970). The Black Response to America: Men, Ideals, and Organization, from Frederick Douglass to the NAACP. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. LCCN 76-111950.
Foltinek, Selina; Hoepker, Karin; Horn, Katrin (2025). Speculative endeavors: Cultures of knowledge and capital in the long nineteenth century. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-8214-2.
Gable, John Allen (1978). The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party. National University Publications. ISBN 0-8046-9187-8.
Green, Hilary (2016). Educational Reconstruction : African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865-1890. Fordham University Press. doi:10.1515/9780823270149. ISBN 978-0-8232-7016-3. OCLC 940935887.
Harlan, Lous R. (1986) [1983]. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 (paperback ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504229-8.
Hoffman, Steven J. (2017). Race, Class and Power in the Building of Richmond, 1870-1920. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-8084-5.
Marlowe, Gertrude Woodruff (2003). A Right Worthy Grand Mission: Maggie Lena Walker and the quest for Black economic empowerment. Howard University Press. ISBN 0-88258-211-9.
Meier, August (1988) [1963]. Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-06118-1.
Randolph, Lewis A.; Tate, Gayle T. (2003). Rights for a Season: The Politics of Race, Class, and Gender in Richmond, Virginia. Univ. of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-224-9.
Smith Jr., J. Clay (1999). Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1685-1.