Harry J. Capehart

Harry Jheopart Capehart Sr. (May 2, 1881 – May 15, 1955) was an American lawyer, politician, and businessperson in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Capehart served as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing McDowell County for three consecutive terms, from 1919 to 1925. He also served as an assessor, city councilperson, and city attorney for Keystone, West Virginia.

Capehart was born in 1881 in Charleston, West Virginia. He was educated in Charleston's public schools, attended Fairview Normal College in Proctorville, Ohio, and earned his Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B.) with honors from Howard University School of Law in 1913. Within one week of his graduation from Howard, Capehart was admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. The same year, he opened a law office in Keystone.

Capehart was active in the West Virginia Republican Party and became a party leader in McDowell County. After serving as Keystone's city assessor and as a city councilperson, Capehart was elected to three consecutive terms in the West Virginia House of Delegates representing McDowell County. As a house member, Capehart accomplished several significant legislative achievements. In 1919, he introduced House Bill (H.B.) 15, which established a state institution for West Virginia's African-American deaf and blind students under the management of the state's Board of Control. And in 1921, Capehart introduced H.B. 270, which established penalties for lynchings and became known as the Capehart Anti-Lynch Law.

Following his tenure in the West Virginia House of Delegates, Capehart was appointed an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia in 1932, and in 1934, he was appointed a conciliation commissioner for the Farm Credit Administration during the Great Depression. Capehart continued to be active in the Republican Party at the national, state, and local levels. He served as the director of the Colored Division of the West Virginia Republican Party Headquarters, and he chaired the Republican National Committee (RNC) Eastern Colored Division Planning Board for the Wendell Willkie campaign leading up to the 1940 United States presidential election. In 1937, the National Bar Association appointed Capehart as its regional director for Virginia and West Virginia. He died in 1955 in Bluefield, West Virginia.

Early life and education Harry Jheopart Capehart was born in Charleston, West Virginia, on May 2, 1881, the son of merchant Joseph Capehart and his wife Maggie Woodyard Capehart. He then graduated from Fairview Normal College in Proctorville, Ohio, in 1901. However, Capehart was forced to delay further post-secondary education to earn money to assist his widowed mother in raising his four siblings. Capehart matriculated at Howard University School of Law, where he earned his Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B.), graduating with the highest honors in 1913.

Law and business careers alt=Photograph view of buildings in downtown Welch, West Virginia, in 1915. Within a week of graduating from Howard, Capehart was admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. He was one of only 23 African-American lawyers in West Virginia by 1920, and one of only 20 by 1930. In Welch, Capehart established the law firm Froe and Capehart with Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, Arthur G. Froe. By 1930, Leon P. Miller, assistant prosecuting attorney for McDowell County, joined Froe and Capehart, forming Froe, Capehart, and Miller, and by 1937, Capehart was the senior partner of the firm, which had become Capehart and Miller. His son, Harry J. Capehart Jr., joined the firm, after which it became known as Capehart, Miller, and Capehart. Both he and his law partner, Froe, were also well-connected in national Republican circles.

West Virginia House of Delegates In August 1918, Capehart was one of three African-American men (along with T. Gillis Nutter and John V. Coleman) nominated in the West Virginia Republican Party primary to run for seats in the West Virginia House of Delegates—at that time, the largest number of African-American candidates to run for house seats in an election. Capehart ran as one of four Republican candidates for four seats representing McDowell County in the house. On November 6, he came in fourth out of six candidates with 4,388 votes—2,232 more votes than the best-performing Democratic challenger—and won election to McDowell's fourth seat in the house. Capehart's first house term occurred during the Thirty-Fourth West Virginia Legislature from January 8, 1919, to March 11, 1920.

Capehart was reelected to the house representing McDowell County in 1920, coming in fourth out of the four Republicans running with 10,929 votes—5,674 votes more than the best-performing Democratic challenger. He was elected along with Republicans E. W. Cullen, J. A. Strother, and H. L. Tutwiler.

During his three terms in the house, Capehart accomplished several significant legislative achievements. During the 1919 regular session, Capehart introduced and sponsored H.B. 15, his first bill passed by the West Virginia Legislature, as an act that established a state institution for West Virginia's African-American deaf and blind students under the management of the state's Board of Control. This act led to the creation of the West Virginia Schools for the Colored Deaf and Blind. To garner the support of his Republican colleagues to pass the bill, Capehart had to modify its more severe provisions.

Federal service In August 1932, Capehart was appointed Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia under the District's U.S. Attorney, D. D. Ashworth. According to Ashworth, Capehart was the first African-American to be appointed to this position in West Virginia; however, Capehart and other African-American attorneys had assisted U.S. Attorneys in West Virginia on an ad hoc basis previously.

Later political activities By 1939, Capehart served on a state committee on employment. He also continued to play an active role in the Republican Party at the national, state, and local levels. In May 1939, he was the principal African-American speaker at the West Virginia Republican Party's general meeting in Charleston. In September 1940, Capehart convened an assembly in Charleston, where African-American Republican leaders from ten counties drafted a resolution petitioning the party's state chairpersons to appoint African-Americans to positions at their respective regional party headquarters, and to provide African-American representation on election boards for precincts with large African-American populations. He convened a conference of the Eastern Colored Division Planning Board in New York on October 1, 1940,

Personal life Marriage and family Capehart married Anna Livingstone Hurley, daughter of Warner and Marie Hurley of Washington, D.C., on November 28, 1917. Arthur Froe Capehart In 1937, Capehart was elected vice president of the association, then known as the Mountain State Bar Association. He was also a member of the National Bar Association (NBA), and in December 1937, he was appointed the association's regional director for Virginia and West Virginia. By 1938, Capehart was a member of the McDowell County Civic League and served as chairperson for the league's program committee. In 1940, he attended the NBA's annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, and delivered a presentation entitled "Whose National Labor Relations Act?" regarding the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Capehart was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was a principal commencement speaker at the May 1943 graduation ceremony at North Carolina A&T State College. In 1943, Capehart was elected a member of Howard University's Board of Trustees, and he was reelected in April 1950, serving as a trustee until 1952.

Capehart continued practicing law almost until his death. In his final major case, he defended Melvin Loveless during his murder trial and appeals against execution. Capehart died on May 15, 1955, at St. Mary's Hospital in Bluefield following a brief illness. At the time of his death, Capehart resided at 14 Virginia Avenue in Welch.