William E. Cameron - Political Career

Political Career

Cameron became active in the Readjuster Party. He was elected as mayor of Petersburg, serving from 1876 to 1882.

In 1881, he was the gubernatorial candidate of the Readjuster Party and elected governor with biracial support. During his term from 1882–1886, he attempted to implement his party's programs of debt reduction and racial integration in certain areas. In 1882 it led passage of legislation for a land-grant college for blacks, what is now Virginia State University in Ettrick, near Petersburg.

Cameron led an anti-oyster pirate expedition of two boats and armed state militia in the ongoing Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake Bay. The state had attempted to license and control traffic in the popular seafood, but 5800 Virginia oyster boats often disregarded laws related to trying to preserve the harvest.

After his term as governor ended in 1886, Cameron briefly left Virginia. He returned and resumed a career in politics, but as a conservative Democrat. Cameron represented Petersburg in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901-1902. At this time, the Democrat-dominated legislature created a disfranchising constitution and essentially ended black voting. The Republican Party ceased to be competitive in the state.

It has had a curious revival since the later twentieth century in the state, following the civil rights movement and passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s that enforced voting rights for African Americans. Today the Republican Party in Virginia is supported primarily by conservative whites, who used to support the Democrats.

Cameron served as editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper from 1906 to 1919.

William Evelyn Cameron died on January 25, 1927 at the home of one of his sons in Louisa County, Virginia. He was buried at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg.