Minnie M. Cox

Minnie M. (Geddings) Cox (1869–1933) was an American teacher who was the first African-American woman to serve as a postmaster in the United States. She became the center of a national controversy in the early 1900s when local white citizens attempted to force her out of her job. She also cofounded one of the earliest black-owned banks in the state, as well as an insurance company.

Minnie M. Geddings was born in 1869 to Mary Geddings and William Geddings in Lexington, Mississippi. At the age of 19, she graduated from Fisk University with a teaching degree. She taught school for a time and in 1889 married Wayne W. Cox, then a school principal in Indianola, Mississippi. They were active in the Republican Party.

In 1891, during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison, she was appointed postmaster of Indianola. She was the first African-American woman to hold such a position. Cox lost her job in 1892 under President Grover Cleveland (a Democrat) but was reappointed in 1897 by President William McKinley and continued to serve under President Theodore Roosevelt.

Cox was considered an excellent postmaster. During the Roosevelt administration, however, local white citizens began to agitate to expel African-Americans from good jobs such as the one Cox held. The white supremacist politician James K. Vardaman led a targeted campaign in his newspaper, The Greenwood Commonwealth, to force her resignation. Eventually the citizens of Indianola voted for Cox to resign a year before her commission was due to expire. Cox initially refused to step down, although she let it be known that she would not try for reappointment after her current commission expired.

As threats against Cox escalated and both the mayor and sheriff refused to protect her, she changed her mind and offered her resignation effective Jan. 1, 1903. President Roosevelt refused to accept her resignation and instead closed the Indianola post office, indicating that it would not reopen until Cox could safely resume her duties. The president also ordered the U.S. Attorney General to prosecute those Indianola citizens who had threatened violence against Cox. A few days later, Cox left town over concerns for her own safety.

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