Rev. Dr. William Jefferson White, Sr. (1831-1913): “The Georgia Baptist Man”

Religious and civil rights leader William Jefferson White lived in Augusta most of his life. Regarded as a free man of color, White was a carpenter, educator, and minister before emancipation. Immediately following the Civil War, White served as an educational agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau and principal founder of Harmony Baptist Church and the Augusta Baptist Institute (now Morehouse College). Throughout Reconstruction, White led efforts to organize the new Georgia Republican Party, advocating for Black civil rights and education. In 1880 White helped establish Augusta’s Ware High School and founded the Georgia Baptist, a weekly African-American newspaper that covered religious and civil rights issues. White endured threats and harsh criticism, often because of his journalism condemning racial violence and lynching. A working pastor until his death, White is buried in Augusta’s Cedar Grove Cemetery. Erected by the Georgia Historical Society, the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History, the USC Center for Civil Rights History and Research, and Augusta University's History, Anthropology, and Philosophy Department