Jesse Duke

This article is about the newspaper editor. For the fictional character, see The Dukes of Hazzard § Jesse Duke.

Jesse Chisholm Duke (March 7, 1853 – January 23, 1916) was a religious and political leader in Alabama who established and edited the Baptist Montgomery Herald newspaper and served as a Selma University trustee.^[1] He advocated for civil rights for African Americans.^[2]

Jesse Duke
Born	Jesse Chisholm Duke (1853-03-07)March 7, 1853 Cahaba, Alabama, U.S.
Died	January 23, 1916(1916-01-23) (aged 62) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Other names	J. C. Duke
Occupation(s)	Editor, publisher, activist

Biography

Duke was born into slavery in March 1853 and raised on a plantation near Cahaba, Alabama. At the age of 10 he was hired as a servant to a family of French refugees. The eldest daughter taught school, giving Jesse his first education.^[3] In the 1870s he owned a grocery store and was a teacher.^[4] He established the Herald in the 1880s.^[5] Duke was an influential political leader among Republicans.^[6]

He wrote an anti-lynching article that called out white journalists for turning a blind to the children fathered by white men and African American women, drawing a strong reaction that instigated Duke fleeing with his family to Pine Bluff, Arkansas where he started another newspaper.^[7] Local whites held a public meeting and condemned him as a vile and dangerous character after he published a statement about the growing appreciation a white "Juliet" could have for a "colored Romeo".^[6]

Duke condemned biased all-white juries and the convict labor system it supplied.^[8] He corresponded with Booker T. Washington about relocating the Lincoln School in Marion to Montgomery.^[9]

He led the Alabama Colored Press Association during its establishment.^[4]

Architect and engineer Charles Sumner Duke (1879–1952) was his son.^[7]

The Library of Congress has the Montgomery Herald 1886 to 1887 in its collection.^[10]