"John Mitchell,Jr"(July 11,1863-December 3,1929)

Was an African-American businessman,newspaper editor,civil rights activist,and politician in Richmond,Virginia.As editor of the Richmond, Virginia.As editor of the Richmond Times,he frequently published articles in favor of racial equality.In 1904,he organized an African American boycott of the city's segregated trolley system.He founded and served as president of the Mechanics Savings Bank in the city.John served as a city alderman for two terms,and was active in fraternal and professional organizations.He ran unsuccessfully as a Republican Party candidate for governor in 1921.John was born a slave in Richmond,Virginia in 1863,shortly before the end of the Civil War.He grew up to become a civic leader and civil rights activist in Richmond's Jackson Ward community.The neighborhood had long had free African Americans,and it became a center of of the freedmen's community after the war;it became known as the "Black Wall Street of America."The African American community in the city increased as freedman migrated there for work and to enjoy a strong African American community.At the age of 21,John joined the Richmond Planet,a newly founded African American newspapers,and was made an editor.He had been a teacher in the local schools."It was under his tenure,that the Planet Gained its well deserved reputation as a proponent of racial equality and rights for the African American community.He reported fearlessly and campaigned against racist lynching which increased in the late nineteenth century as whites worked to re-establish white supremacy and Jim Crow at the end of the Reconstruction era.Like Ida B.Talbert,he reported lynchings and was sometimes endangered:

"John himself was threatened with hanging at the hands of a Charlottee County mob angered by his reporting of the lynching there of Richard Walker in May 1886.John was sent a rope with a note attached warning him that he would be lynched himself if he ever set foot in the county.In reply,and borrowing a line from Shakesspeare,John said this:"There are no terrors,Cassius,in your treats,for I am strong in honestly that they pass by me like the idle wind,which I respect not." Then armed with two Smith & Wessons pistols,he broaded a train for Smithville and undeterred,walked the five miles from the station to the site of the hanging."

John was gregarious and active;he became a leader of the Knights of Pythias,an African American fraternal organization both locally and on the state level level,where he led it in the 1920s.He was also president of the National Afro-American Association.John was the founder and president of the Mechanics Savings Bank in Richmond.It was part of the rise of African American-owned businesses in the city.In 1904,Richmond passed a new law to enforce segregated seating areas on its trolleys,in protest,John helped organize mass meetings and a boycott by African Americans of the system.As gleefully covered in his article:"Street Car Trap,"on the first day of the new system,only whites were arrested refusing to change their seats;some could not be bothered to observe the new rules or had realized the change was happening.The electric trolley had been created in 1888.Suffering the loss of of African American business,refusing to give its Jim Crow policy,the trolley company went into receivership.In 1892 and 1894,he was elected as a Richmond city alderman from Jackson Ward.It was another facet of his widespread connections in the community.In 1921 John ran for governor,on what was called a "Lily Black" Republication Party ticket ( this was an all African-American off-shot).His campaign was considered controversial and opposed  by some African Americans,such as the Journal and Guide of Norfolk,editors believed would spilt the African American vote and cost them influence with Democratic Party candidate who won the office.John did not win.He died at his desk.He is buried in an unmarked grave in Richmnd's Evergreen Cementary.