NC’s first Black physician also blazed trails as businessman, candidate for Raleigh mayor
EDITOR’S NOTE: In honor of Black History Month, The Charlotte Observer is highlighting the lives and accomplishments of nine people whose contributions might not be as well known as others, local “hidden figures” as it were.
Dr. Manassa Thomas Pope became a trailblazer in North Carolina: he was the first Black physician in the state. He also was a businessman, soldier and the only Black man to run for mayor in Raleigh during Jim Crow.
Pope was born in 1858 on the lead-up to the Civil War and was raised in Northampton County by free parents. He attended Shaw University and finished with a bachelor of arts degree in 1879.
Pope continued his education at the Leonard Medical School in Raleigh and earned a medical degree from the school in 1886 — becoming the first Black person licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina.
A year later, he married Lydia Walden. After moving to Charlotte in 1892, he opened a medical practice as well as the Queen City Drug Company and People’s Benevolent Association insurance company.
Pope also fought for his country during the Spanish-American War in an all-Black regiment. After the war, Pope moved to the Raleigh area and built a house in the early 1900s.
During this period of Jim Crow laws, where Black residents faced racism and obstacles to vote, he was one of seven Black residents in Raleigh able to vote. That was from a legal loophole with literacy and grandfather clauses involving illiterate white men. It said anyone whose father or grandfather was able to vote before 1867 was exempt from the voting test.
Pope ran for mayor in 1919 but did not get many votes. Still, he was revered for making the attempt and being the only Black man to run for mayor of a capital city in the South during segregation.
His 124-year-old house in downtown Raleigh was preserved and became the Pope House Museum. The historic site is the only Black house museum in North Carolina, according to the city of Raleigh. It’s also on the National Register of Historic Places.
This story was originally published February 24, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
