William Louis Poteat

William Louis Poteat (1856-1938), also known as "Doctor Billy", was a professor (c. 1880-1905) and then the seventh president (1905-1927) of Wake Forest College (today, Wake Forest University). A devout Christian, Poteat was noted for his progressive ("see Progressive Era") views on evolution and race.

Biography

Born in Caswell County, North Carolina to a noted Baptist, slave-owning family, Poteat went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wake Forest College (then located in Wake Forest, North Carolina) in 1877. Shortly after graduating, he was hired by his alma mater as a natural science instructor. He taught himself the subject (with which he had little previous experience) and his studies led him to discover Darwinian concepts of natural selection and evolution. Poteat reconciled the contradictions he found between these notions and his Christian outlook. His beliefs were not shared by many conservative Baptists, which led to controversy in the 1920s, by which time Poteat was president of the college. He survived attempts to remove him as president, and helped persuade members of the North Carolina General Assembly to defeat a bill that would have banned the teaching of evolution (as other states had done; see Scopes Monkey Trial).

External links

* [http://www.wfu.edu/history/HST_WFU/poteat.htm Dictionary of NC Biography, reprinted on Wake Forest University website]
* [http://www.kentuckypress.com/viewbook.cfm?Group=32&ID=386 U. of Kentucky Press, WILLIAM LOUIS POTEAT: A Leader of the Progressive-Era South by Randal L. Hall]