owns. His maternal grandmother was
half-Indian and his paternal grandmother was Irish,
full-blood. His other admixture is facetiously described as
"mostly Negro." His early boyhood was a struggle for bread
and a very little butter, his schooling being necessarily
neglected. He usually attended two or three months in the
year. Later, by dint of toil, and saving a few dollars, he
was able to secure training under Prof. D. P. Allen,
President of the Whitten Normal School at Lumberton, N. C.,
and afterwards entered Howard University at Washington,
graduating from the eclectic department in 1877. Believing
that he could best serve his race and himself as an advocate
of justice, he read law while taking the academic course,
completing his reading under Judge William J. Clarke, of
North Carolina, and was licensed to practice in all courts
of that State by the Supreme Court in 1879.

Although Mr. White has won marked success in several walks
of life, as lawyer, teacher and business man, it is his
political achievements that have won for him not only a
national reputation, but have evoked no small degree of
comment from the press and diplomats of many of the
countries of the old world. It is worthy of remark that up
to this time, at the age of forty-nine, he has never held an
appointive office, his commissions coming invariably from
the hands of the sovereign people direct. He was elected to
the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1880, and to
the State Senate in 1884; was elected solicitor and
prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of
North Carolina for four years in 1886, and for a like term
in 1890; was nominated for Congress in 1894, but withdrew in
the interest of harmony in his party. He made the race for
Congress in 1896 and was triumphantly elected by a majority
of 4,000, reversing a normal democratic majority of over
5,000--a change of fully 9,000 votes, indicating in no
uncertain tone the confidence and esteem in which he was
held by his friends and neighbors. He was re-elected in
1898. His services as a legislator were conscientious and
valuable. At the close of his second term, he delivered a
valedictory to the country, which was universally praised as
the best, truest and most timely expression of th