Cameron A. Morrison

Cameron A. Morrison (October 5, 1869 – August 20, 1953) was an American white supremacist politician and the 55th governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1921 to 1925.

Early life and career 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.

In 1898, Morrison participated in the Wilmington massacre, 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. 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.

In 1900, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate for one term.

Governorship 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. Morrison's gubernatorial campaign stressed his Red Shirt activity 20 years earlier, and also stressed his opposition to women's suffrage. In the general election, he defeated Republican nominee John J. Parker.

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

Later career 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.

Morrison was later elected to one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1943 to 1945. He again lost a Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 1944, to Clyde R. Hoey. Morrison continued to promote white supremacy until the end of his life and never apologized for his role in the 1898 Red Shirt campaign. Although Morrison was angered by Harry Truman's pro-civil rights stances in 1948, he endorsed Truman for re-election rather than Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond, because he believed that Southern congressmen and Senators would prevent Truman from enacting civil right measures. He died in Quebec City in 1953. Tomlinson died in 1919.

In 1924, while serving as governor, Morrison married a second time to Sara Virginia Ecker Watts, the widow of George Washington Watts. Their wedding ceremony was held at Harwood Hall.

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. A residence hall at North Carolina A&T State University was also named after Morrison, but the name was removed in 2020.