Clyde Roark Hoey | |
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United States Senator from North Carolina |
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In office January 3, 1945 – May 12, 1954 |
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Preceded by | Robert R. Reynolds |
Succeeded by | Sam Ervin |
59th Governor of North Carolina | |
In office January 7, 1937 – January 9, 1941 |
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Lieutenant | Wilkins P. Horton |
Preceded by | John C.B. Ehringhaus |
Succeeded by | J. Melville Broughton |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 9th district |
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In office December 16, 1919 – March 3, 1921 |
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Preceded by | Edwin Y. Webb |
Succeeded by | Alfred L. Bulwinkle |
Personal details | |
Born |
Shelby, North Carolina |
December 11, 1877
Died | May 12, 1954 Washington, D.C. |
(aged 76)
Political party | Democratic |
Clyde Roark Hoey (December 11, 1877 in Shelby, North Carolina – May 12, 1954 in Washington, D.C.) was a Democratic politician from North Carolina. He served in both houses of the state legislature and served briefly in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1919 to 1921. He was North Carolina's governor from 1937 to 1941. He entered the U.S. Senate in 1945 and served there until his death.
Hoey (HOO-ee) was born to S. A. Hoey and Mary Roark. He attended school until age eleven. He worked on his family's farm and bought a weekly newspaper when he was 16. He was elected to the State Legislature when he was twenty. He served as a State Representative and then as a State Senator. He was elected in a special election to the United States House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Edwin Y. Webb who had accepted a Federal judgeship. He defeated a Republican who opposed United States support for the League of Nations. He served from 1919 to 1921.
He was the 59th Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1937 to 1941. In July 1937, he pardoned Luke Lea, a Tennessee politician and former U.S. Senator, who had been paroled a year earlier. His appointment of a black man to the board of trustees of a black college set a precedent. Following the 1938 Gaines Supreme Court decision on racial segregation in higher education, he asked the North Carolina legislature to provide for segregated higher education for blacks. Though opposed to integrated education, he said that the people of the state "do believe in equality of opportunity in their respective fields of service" and that "the white race cannot afford to do less than simple justice to the Negro."
In 1937, Hoey appointed the Yanceyville banker, businessman, and later state senator, Samuel Bason to the North Carolina Highway Commission. Bason's daughter, Carolyn Elizabeth Bason (1922-2015), worked in Hoey's United States Senate office and was personal secretary for Hoey's successor, Sam J. Ervin, Jr. She later married U.S. Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana.