Clarence Hamilton Poe

Clarence Poe (1881–1964) was an American Progressive Era Southern editor, author, and reformer.

Early life

Clarence Hamilton Poe was born on January 10, 1881 near Gulf in Chatham County, North Carolina. His father, William Baxter (1839–1907), was a small cotton farmer and his mother was Susan Dismukes Poe (1846-1911). Augustine Henry Shepperd (1792–1864) was one of his maternal ancestors. He attended Rocky Branch School and only one year of high school.

Career

He served as editor of The Progressive Farmer for 65 years beginning in 1899.

He was prominent in pushing for reforms in Southern agriculture to make it more scientific and to improve rural conditions in the South. He served on the State of North Carolina Board of Agriculture, the Advisory Council of the United States Department of Agriculture, and on the National Commission on Farm Tenancy, as well as chairing the North Carolina Hospital and Medical Care Commission appointed by Governor Broughton in 1944.Poe was praised by many in North Carolina and the South for the work he did for agriculture.However, he is also well known for promoting a program of rural racial segregation in North Carolina, due to the rapid increase of African American farm ownership in the early twentieth century. He was motivated both by modern, social Darwinist assumptions and by his concern that the rise of black farm owners was undermining poor white farmers' ability to compete.In the end, white planters, fearing the loss of their labor, successfully opposed his rural segregation plan.

He also served on the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina State College.A building at the university, Poe Hall, was named in his honor.

Death

He died on October 8, 1964.