Robert Bruce White

Robert Bruce White. Image Source: The Howler (Wake Forest College Yearbook). 1931. P. 21.

Robert Bruce White was born in Raleigh in 1872, the son of a Baptist clergy-educator, Rev. James McDaniel White (1836-1912). Prior to taking up the ministry, Rev. White had graduated from Wake Forest College (then located in Wake Forest, just north of Raleigh) in 1859, and then served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. At the time of his son’s birth, he was associate principal of Lovejoy’s Academy in Raleigh.

In 1891, Bruce White graduated from Wake Forest College, and then earned his law license there in 1896. He practiced law in Franklinton and Louisburg for the next twenty years, and also represented Franklin County in the state senate for two terms (1903, 1915), drafting “the bill that brought prohibition to North Carolina.” In 1907, White was named a charter member of the ECTTS board of trustees. Earlier, in 1903, as a state senator, he had given his strong support to the establishment of Appalachian Training School for Teachers.

In 1899, White was elected superintendent of schools in Franklin County. Earlier that year, White, who also served as mayor of Franklinton, led an assembly of “the white citizens of Franklinton District” protesting actions by the “Fusion School Committee” placing an allegedly “unfit” individual, Kenneth Levister, in a white school of the district. Levister reportedly had obtained his teaching certificate in exchange for a promise to support Fusion candidates in future elections.

In the wake of the purge of pro-Fusion elements from the Franklinton school system, White presided over Franklin County schools throughout the early 1900s, overseeing the establishment of “graded schools,” or public schools dividing students in developmental grades. During his tenure, Franklin County expenditures for schools and teachers shifted away from the higher budgets for “colored schools,” as characterized during the years of Fusion dominance, and in favor of markedly higher budgets for white schools. Like Democrats of his time, White’s support for progressive public education was coupled with strong backing for the system of Jim Crow racial segregation that came to be institutionalized in the early twentieth century.

From 1906 to 1908, White worked with the State Board of Education, handling legal suits related to public schools. Notably, one of these suits established the right of taxation beyond constitutional limits for the purpose of public education.

In 1914, White joined a law practice with the attorney general, Thomas Walter Bickett (1869-1921). Bickett, a classmate of White’s at Wake Forest College, later served the state as governor (1917-1921). In 1916, White took a position as a professor of law at the Wake Forest Law School. He remained a faculty there until his passing in 1944.

Sources:

• “A Comparison: Tax Payers of Franklin, Open Your Eyes and Read.” Franklin Times. October 10, 1902. P. 2.
• “Board of Trustees.” First Annual Catalogue of the East Carolina Teachers’ Training School, 1909-1910. P. 6. University Archives # UA45.03.03.03. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, North Carolina. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/6033
• Bulletin of Wake Forest College: Catalogue, Eighty-Seventh Session, 1921-1922. New Series. Vol. XVII, No. 1. April 1922. Trustees of Wake Forest College, 1922. P. 12.
• “Eastern Training School: The Board of Trustees Named by Board of Education.” North Carolinian. March 28, 1907. P. 8.
• “Graded Schools: Louisburg is Going to Get Them.” Franklin Times. January 20, 1905. P. 3.
• “Indignation Meeting: Citizens of Franklinton thoroughly Aroused by the Action of Fusion School Committee.” Franklin Times (Louisburg). January 6, 1899. P. 2.
• Hunter, Thomas. “The Institutionalization of Legal Education in North Carolina, 1790-1920.” In Steve Sheppard, ed. The History of Legal Education in the United States: Commentaries and Primary Source. Vol. 1. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1999. Pp. 460-461.
• “R. Bruce White Taken By Death.” News and Observer. November 29, 1944. P. 10.
• “The New Superintendent.” Franklin Times (Louisburg). July 14, 1899. P. 3.
• The Howler. Published by the Student Body of Wake Forest College, Wake Forest, N.C. 1931. P. 21. https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/28537?ln=en#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=27&r=0&xywh=1%2C416%2C5618%2C3134
• White Hall. Appalachian State University. https://omeka-dev.library.appstate.edu/exhibits/show/dorm-histories-and-legacies/eastcampus/whitehall

Citation Information