Gideon S. Bailey

Canadian-born Gideon Stump Bailey was one of Washington State's foremost Black leaders from the 1890s through the 1900s. He left an undeniable impact through his work advocating for equal rights, political leadership, and recognition for Washington's growing Black community after the Civil War.

Born to a mother from Madagascar and a father from Tennessee, Bailey grew up in Canada, which was considered a safe haven for African Americans amidst the horrors of American slavery. The circumstances of his family's residence in Canada are unclear, but Bailey clearly felt a strong tie to the plight of African Americans in the United States, as he came to the United States to enlist in the 6th U.S. Colored Infantry during the Civil War. He is remembered as a strong recruiter for the Union cause, encouraging fellow Black men to fight for freedom.

Bailey later came to the mining town of Franklin, Washington in 1891. He arrived with a group of African American men who were being used as strikebreakers by the Oregon Improvement Company without their knowledge. White miners responded poorly to these strikebreakers being brought in to replace them amidst their strike, causing deep racial conflict in Franklin. Despite these challenges, Bailey quickly rose to prominence in Franklin, founding the town's first Republican club.

Views of Franklin, WA. Photos property of the Black Diamond Historical Society.

Civil Rights Leadership

As the Black population of Washington state grew after the Civil War, Washington-based branches of the National Afro-American League (NAAL), later known as the National Afro-American Council (NAAC), began to spring up. Founded nationally in 1887, the Afro-American League is considered the first national civil rights organization in the United States, and is the predecessor of the modern National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

“The Afro-American Council was called into being by the necessities of the people and its mission is to ameliorate in so far as it can intelligently, wisely, and practically do so, the deplorable political and industrial position of a large portion of our brethren, in the South especially, who are living in a shadow of a condition which they did not create and from which they would gladly [emerge] if encouraged the Afro-Americans of the North, who enjoy larger civil and political rights than their brethren of the South.” — Cyrus Adams, The National Afro-American Council, organized 1898, 1925.

Though smaller branches of the NAAL existed in Seattle, Spokane, and Tacoma, among other select cities in Washington, there was no unifying body for the state. To address this lack of cohesion among branches, a Washington state branch of the NAAL was founded in 1891, and Gideon Bailey was elected its very first president, just a short time after his arrival in Franklin as a strikebreaker. Throughout his life, Bailey worked towards achieving the values of the NAAL, and was a strong early backer of Black businesses, political movements, and publications in Washington. As president of the NAAL, Bailey was a key leader in advocating for one of Washington state's earliest anti-lynching bills, a response to the horrifying racial violence in the South in the 1890s. This bill made it quite far through the Washington State Legislature, but failed to pass.

In 1894, Gideon Bailey was appointed as Franklin's Justice of the Peace. Reportedly he was the first Black man to hold a Justice of the Peace office in the Pacific Northwest. This solidified Bailey's prestige as a political figure in Washington state — a prestige that followed him when he moved to Seattle in the latter half of the 1890s. In Seattle, Bailey was one of the many who profited from the Klondike Gold Rush, which lasted from the summer of 1896 until 1899. He became a manager at the Seattle & Klondike Grubstake & Trading Company, a prominent Black-owned business.

The Klondike Gold Rush

The Seattle & Klondike Grubstake & Trading Company was founded by four Black businessmen, one of whom was John N. Conna, who owned a significant amount of land in Federal Way and Tacoma, a portion of which he donated to the up-and-coming city of Tacoma in 1889. Conna and Bailey encouraged African Americans, particularly those in the South, to make their way out to Washington and enjoy the vast economic opportunity that awaited them there. The services and goods of the Seattle & Klondike Grubstake & Trading Company varied, but primarily focused on grubstaking, a common contract made with prospectors looking to make their way to the Klondike gold fields. In a grubstake deal, a company provided miners with transportation and supplies in exchange for a fixed rate of their earnings. Grubstaking was a great way for people who did not want to go to Alaska themselves to make a solid income off of the Gold Rush, so there were quite a few companies and contractors who provided these services in Seattle and surrounding cities.

Freemasonry & Seattle Society

Gideon Bailey was a prominent member of Seattle society, and as most upper-middle-class Seattle men were at this time, he was a member of a number of notable organizations. He was a member of the Miller Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, which despite having primarily white members at the time, was fully integrated. Bailey was also a Freemason, but at that time, the national lodge did not acknowledge the numerous Black Freemason groups throughout the nation. Black Freemasonry is also known as Prince Hall Masonry, named for Prince Hall, who founded the first Black Masonic organization in the United States in 1775, in response to the refusal of white Masonic lodges to recognize Black applicants — an issue that remained over 100 years later when Gideon Bailey was a Freemason. Washington state's white-dominated Masonic lodges refused to recognize Black Freemasons, so in 1898, Bailey went to the Great Lodge of Washington and demanded that the Washington State Afro-American Masonic Lodge be afforded the same recognition as white ones. His demands were heard, and he earned Washington's Black Freemasons state-wide recognition. This decision out of Washington sent shockwaves through the rest of the country's Freemason lodges, with some Great Lodges in Southern states cutting off contact with all Freemason lodges in Washington State.

Gideon Bailey was also a prominent member of Seattle's Republican Party. He tried to run for office several times in the 1890s, but Seattle's Republicans, despite claiming to care about the interests of African Americans, refused to nominate Black candidates. Bailey also found that Seattle's Republicans did little to actually help Seattle's Black community, and instead were focused on posturing in order to gain the Black vote. This disingenuous relationship between Republicans and Black Americans became a point of contention nationally during the early 1900s, and a significant portion of wealthy Black Americans, including Bailey, switched over to the Democratic Party. Bailey was a founding member of Seattle's Colored Democrats Club, a major departure from his days as a Republican in Franklin. This switch was not well received by Seattle's Black community, many of whom remained Republican voters and felt that switching to the party of slavery and the Confederacy was traitorous.

“The only reason that I am a Democrat is because Republicans have never given me an office and have completely overlooked me in the party counsels of war. I have been dropped and another picked up, who not only comes from the slums, but who cannot handle his own vote. Were it not for those things I would still be a good Republican.” — Gideon S. Bailey, The Seattle Republican, October 26, 1900.

Not long after his party switch, Gideon Bailey fell ill, and eventually passed away at his home in Beacon Hill on July 3, 1905. His funeral was at Seattle's African American Episcopal Church, which still stands and holds services today at 14th and Pike.

Gideon Bailey's impact on Washington was nothing short of remarkable. He leaves behind a fascinating legacy that provides us with a look into one perspective on the Black experience in the early days of Washington State.