Needham B. Broughton

Needham Bryant Broughton (February 14, 1848 – May 26, 1914) was an American printer, temperance activist, and politician who served as a North Carolina state senator from 1901 to 1903. He co-owned a prosperous printing business, Edwards & Broughton, and was a member of several commercial organizations. An active member in the North Carolina Baptist community, he served as secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention for approximately 30 years. Broughton was born in 1848 near Auburn, North Carolina. Eight years later his family moved to Raleigh, and he enrolled in public school. After several years of work in printing offices which saw him employed in Washington, D.C., and New York City, Broughton returned to Raleigh and married. In 1872 he and C.B. Edwards established the Edwards & Broughton Printing Company. It quickly became one of the largest printers in North Carolina, and for a time it did most of the printing and binding of state publications.

Broughton was a devout Baptist who acted as a lay preacher, deacon, Sunday school superintendent, and secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention for about 30 years. Inspired by his religious convictions, he avidly campaigned for temperance and the prohibition of alcohol in North Carolina. He served one term in the North Carolina State Senate for the Democratic Party to prevent the seat from being filled by an anti-prohibition candidate. Broughton also supported public education, securing tax increases to fund Raleigh's schools and serving on the boards of trustees for several state institutions. He fell ill in 1913 and was forced to retire, dying the following year in a hospital in Philadelphia. Needham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh was named in his honor.

Early life and printing career Needham Bryant Broughton was born on February 14, 1848, on a farm near Auburn, North Carolina, to Joseph Broughton and Mary Bagwell. His paternal grandfather was an English immigrant. Joseph Broughton died in 1854, leaving Bagwell to care for Needham, his three brothers, and his three sisters by herself. In 1856, Broughton moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, with his family and studied in public schools for five years.

When Broughton was 13 years old he was hired by editor John W. Syme to work in The Raleigh Register'''s printing office. When the publication was suspended in 1864, he was subsequently hired by John L. Pennington to perform similar work for the Daily Progress. Upon the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, Broughton traveled to Richmond, Virginia, to find employment. He worked for the Richmond Examiner for six months before moving to Washington, D. C. to work for the Congressional Record. Quitting after the close of Congress' 1867 session, in August he left for Baltimore. After a brief stay there and in Philadelphia, he settled in New York City. Broughton struggled to obtain employment for two weeks, and spent one day working on the New York World. He then set type for the New York Herald for over three months.

Religious activities

Broughton was Baptized as a Baptist in 1868. He was a member of the First Baptist Church in Raleigh. In 1874 he and J.S. Allen led several other parishioners in organizing a new congregation and purchasing a church on Swain Street, which they subsequently named Second Baptist Church. Within two years the congregation decided that a larger building was needed, so land was purchased at the corner of Hargett and Person Streets and the Tabernacle Baptist Church was established. Broughton was made a deacon and appointed superintendent of its Sunday school. In the late 1890s he was made vice-president of the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and a member of the executive committee of the International Sunday School Association. He held all three positions until 1913. In the 1888 he successfully lobbied for a property tax increase to save the city's schools from bankruptcy. He accepted the nomination to prevent it from being taken by an anti-prohibition candidate. Once elected, Broughton joined Robert Nirwana Simms in nominating Furnifold Simmons, the architect of the Democrats’ White Supremacy Campaign, for the United States Senate. In separate speeches in the state House and Senate, Broughton praised Simmons for having “forever settled negroism in North Carolina” which Simms credited to the nominee’s ability to move “the Anglo-Saxon manhood of the state [to] the high and holy purpose to throw off forever the galling yoke of negro domination.” Alcohol remained prohibited in North Carolina until 1935.