Jerome R. Riley

Jerome R. Riley was born March 17, 1844 in Detroit, Michigan to Isaac and Catherine Riley. He was among the first settlers in Buxton who awaited Rev. King's arrival, when he was only four years old.

Jerome Riley was also one of Rev. King's early graduates. He attended Knox College, University of Toronto. Both he and Anderson Abbott were among the original founders of the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C.  He continued to upgrade his medical knowledge attending both the Chicago Medical College and Howard University Medical College (1869-73). 

Jerome become an active ‘Redeemer’ Democrat and participated in the 1874 Constitutional Convention in Arkansas.  The Democrats made a point of retaining the controversial civil rights provisions of their predecessors. New York Herald reporter Charles Nordhoff visited Arkansas in 1875, Dr. Jerome R. Riley, a black physician from Jefferson County, boasted that “more colored men were elected and commissioned to offices of trust and pay” than under the Republicans. Nearly a decade later a black reporter from the Indianapolis Freedman was so impressed with the situation he found in Arkansas that he dubbed the state the “Negro Paradise.”  Unfortunately in 1890, Jim Crow laws were introduced and adapted in Arkansas; no black man served in public office again until the 1960’s Civil Rights legislation.
(http://www.oldstatehouse.com/exhibits/arkansas-politics/iframes/printer_version_section8.asp)

In 1895, Riley wrote "Philosophy of Negro Suffrage", which is still in print today.  Read what Jerome Riley wrote about living in Buxton on pages 77, 78, and 79.
(http://archive.org/stream/philosophynegro00rilerich#page/n7/mode/2up)

In 1899, Jerome was a member of the "National Negro Anti-Expansion, Anti-Imperialist, Anti-Trust, and Anti-Lynching League" or the "National Negro League" (for short) and they combated several issues as is clear by their name.