Josiah H. Blount

Josiah Homer Blount (September 17, 1860 – December 15, 1938) was an American teacher, farmer, businessman, and fraternal order leader who was the first African-American to run for Governor of Arkansas.

Early life and education

Blount was born into slavery to farmers Madison Blount and Queen Victoria Isabella Lester Blount in Clinton, Georgia.

Following his graduation in 1890, Blount relocated to Arkansas where he began a multi-decade career in education as a teacher, principal, and administrator for schools in Texarkana, Hot Springs, Helena, and Forrest City. In addition to being an educator, Blount was a successful farmer and brick maker, eventually managing a brick manufacturing plant in Forrest City. Despite resistance and erasure from Arkansas state officials, CACD chapters raised funds, bought war stamps, encouraged food conservation, and sewed clothing for soldiers. The CACD was disbanded following the end of the war in late 1919.

Blount was heavily involved with Mason organizations. He was one of 13 original founding members of the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a Prince Hall Mason and served as the Deputy Grand Master of the Most Worshipful Sovereign Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Arkansas for at least four years, and was a thirty-third-degree Scottish Rite Mason. They assembled at the headquarters of the Mosaic Templars of America to hold their own nominating convention and chose Blount as their candidate. The Arkansas secretary of state and later Ku Klux Klan member Thomas Jefferson Terral forced Blount to run as an independent rather than a Republican, and listed him as "negro" on the ballot.