Background
In 1890 his family moved to Washington, D. C. , where his father was appointed a clerk in the United States Treasury Department.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Quintin Morton
Edit Profile
Education
After attending school in Washington, Morton graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1902 and entered Harvard College.
That fall he entered Boston University Law School where, as he later said, "I pursued knowledge until the bursar interfered. "
Career
Little is known of his early life.
From 1906 to 1908, again according to his own account, he did "practically nothing" (Harvard Class Report, 1931).
After moving to New York City in 1908, Morton worked for a time as a butler.
He also began to take an interest in Democratic party politics, and during the 1908 presidential campaign he spoke to audiences on behalf of William Jennings Bryan.
Morton's intelligence and oratorical ability came to the attention of Tammany boss Charles F. Murphy, who in 1915 intervened to secure his election as leader of the UCD.
From his Harlem headquarters, however, Morton ruled the United Colored Democracy with an iron hand throughout the 1920's.
In his last years he suffered from Parkinson's disease.
While taking treatment at Freedmen's Hospital, he died of burns received when a lit cigarette set his bed afire as he slept.
He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.
[Biographical details about Morton are scarce.
The best sources are Harvard College, Class Reports for the class of 1906 (1916, 1931), which included Morton although he failed to receive a degree; Who's Who in Colored Am. , I (1927); and two brief typescript studies in the Schomburg Collect.
of the N. Y. Public Lib. : Samuel Michelson, "Hist.
of Ferdinand Q. Morton of N. Y. ," both of which are in the WPA Writers Program, Political Life and Organizations of Negroes in N. Y. C. (n. d. ).
Morton's role as Negro baseball commissioner is briefly recounted in Robert W. Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (1970).
See also the obituaries in the N. Y. Age, Nov. 12, 1949; N. Y. Times, Nov. 9, 1949; and N. Y. Herald-Tribune, Nov. 9, 1949. ]
Politics
Morton soon joined the United Colored Democracy, an organization established to attract the predominantly Republican black population of New York into the Democratic fold.
(Unlike the Republican party, the New York Democratic organization, Tammany Hall, did not recruit directly into the existing political clubhouses. )
of the Democratic Party in Harlem, " and James Gardner, "Brief Hist.
Connections
-
Born
-
Died
1949 (aged 0) -
Political Party
Republican Democratic Party