William Madison McDonald

William Madison McDonald (June 22, 1866 – July 5, 1950), nicknamed "Gooseneck Bill", was an African-American politician, businessman, and banker of great influence in Texas during the late nineteenth century. Part of the Black and Tan faction, by 1892 he was elected to the Republican Party of Texas's state executive committee, as temporary chairman in 1896, and as permanent state chairman in 1898.

During this period, McDonald was also elected as top leader of two black fraternal organizations, serving as Grand Secretary of the state's black Masons for 50 years. In 1906 he founded Fort Worth's first African-American-owned bank as an enterprise of the state Masons; under his management, the bank survived the Great Depression. The black chapters of Masons banked with him, McDonald made loans to black businessmen, and he became probably the first black millionaire in Texas.

Named after William Shakespeare and James Madison, William Madison McDonald was born in 1866 in College Mound, Texas, little more than a year after the end of the American Civil War. His father George McDonald was a former slave from Tennessee. He was once held by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, according to a 2008 report by the Dallas Morning News. His mother was Flora (née Scott) McDonald of Alabama, described by one source as a "free woman of color" before the war, and by another as a "former slave." George McDonald was a farmer and blacksmith. After Flora died when William was a child, his father married Belle Crouch.

As a teenager, McDonald went to work for rancher and lawyer Captain Z. T. Adams, who took an interest in him. He began teaching the youth about business and law. After graduating from high school in 1884, with the help of Adams and others, McDonald attended Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee. It had been established by the Baptist Church of the North in 1866 as a historically black college, and was important for educating generations of African-American leaders in the South.

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