Cameron A. Morrison

He was born in 1869 in Richmond County, North Carolina. His father Daniel Morrison had reluctantly fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, but had joined the Republican Party after the Civil War. Clarence Morrison initially inherited his father's Republican Party affiliation and was elected to the state Republican Committee in 1890 at the age of just 21. But just one year later, Cameron Morrison changed his affiliation to the Democratic Party. ^[1]

In 1898, Morrison participated in the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, a violent coup d'état by a group of white supremacists. They expelled opposition black and white political leaders from the city, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built up since the Civil War, including the only black newspaper in the city, and killed an estimated 60 to more than 300 people.^[2] The governor of North Carolina, Daniel Lindsay Russell, was forced to flee from Wilmington to Raleigh. Morrison boarded Russell's train in Maxton, North Carolina in the company of a small band of Red Shirts and warned Russell that a more hostile band of Red Shirts were waiting at a later stop. He advised Russell to hide in the baggage car to avoid being lynched, which he did.^[3]

In 1900, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate for one term.^[4]

With the backing of Sen. Furnifold Simmons and the help of race-baiting tactics employed by A. D. Watts, Morrison defeated O. Max Gardner in the 1920 Democratic primary for governor.^[5] In the general election, he defeated Republican nominee John J. Parker.

Morrison was inaugurated on January 12, 1921.^[6] He came to be called "the Good Roads governor" for his support of a modern highway system. Morrison also presided over various reforms^[7][8][9] and pushed for increased funds for public education, while also battling the teaching of the theory of evolution.^[10]

He was later appointed to serve as a United States senator for the state of North Carolina (after the death of Lee S. Overman) between 1930 and 1932, but lost his seat in the Democratic primary runoff to Robert R. Reynolds.^[11]

Morrison was later elected to one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1943 to 1945.^[12] He again lost a Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 1944, to Clyde R. Hoey.^[13] He died in Quebec City in 1953.

Morrison was married twice. His first wife, Lottie May Tomlinson, gave birth to four children but only one, Angelia Lawrance Morrison, survived infancy.^[14] Tomlinson died in 1919.^[15]

In 1924, while serving as governor, Morrison married a second time to Sara Virginia Ecker Watts, the widow of George Washington Watts.^[16] Their wedding ceremony was held at Harwood Hall.^[16] With his second wife, Morrison built Morrocroft, a large estate in Charlotte.^[16] In his will, or possible before he died, Governor Morrison gave the back section of his personal home for the black congregation of Sharon Road Methodist Church. The land currently hosts unmarked graves of the black partitioners.

A ten-story residence hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is named in Morrison's honor. His home at Charlotte, Morrocroft, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.^[17]

A library in Charlotte was named after Morrison, but was renamed in 2020 due to Morrison's ties with the Red Shirts and white supremacy.^[18] A residence hall at North Carolina A&T State University was also named after Morrison, but the name was removed in 2020.^[19]