"James Carroll Napier" (June 9,1845-April 21,1940)

A 19th century Nashville businessman and civil rights leader,born near

Nashville, Tennessee to William Carroll Napier & Janet E.Napier attended a private school in Nashville Tennessee and then in 1859 enrolled in predominately African American Wilberforce College before transferring to integrated Oberlin College.
James left Oberlin College in 1867 without a degree and returned to Nashville,Tennessee.Drawn to opportunities available to him in the emerging Reconstruction era,he served as the commissioner of refugees and abandoned lands in Davidson county under the Freedmen's bureau for a year.He then moved to Washington,D.C.to become the first African American to hold the position of State Department Clerk.Encouraged by John Mercer Langston,the dean of the Howard University Law School,James enrolled in Howard where he received a Bachelor in Law (LL.B) in 1872.He moved back to Nashville to start his own practice.There James married Nettie Langston,the only daughter of John Mercer Langston,in 1878.They had one adopted daughter,Carrie Langston Napier.
He worked as a lawyer and soon became a a prominent politician known in both Washington and Nashville.James held patronage appointments under Presidents Ulysses Grant,Rutherford Hayes,James Garfield,Chester Arthur.During the period,from 1878-1885 he served on Nashville's city council.James also served on the state Republican Executive Committee thirty-five years.In 1911,through connections with Booker T.Washington,James was appointed the Register of the Treasury under William Howard Taft,the highest governmental position then available to African Americans.In 1913,he resigned that post to protest President Woodrow Wilson's institution of segregation
practices among federal employees in Washington.The Napier family returned to Nashville.James retired from politics and devoted his energies to business interests.He retired from politics and in 1903,became and investor in the One Cent Savings Bank.Now a supporter of racial improvement primarily through economic self-help and education,James had become and ardent follower of Booker T.Wasington.James often expressed his distaste for more "aggressive"leaders such as William Edward Burghhardt AKA W.E.B. Du Bois.James joined Booker's National Negro Business League and became president of the organization succeeding Booker T.Washington upon Booker's death in 1915.James died in Nashville.