G. K. Butterfield

In the late 1940s, he helped found the Wilson Branch of the NAACP in order to register black voters in the county.

George Kenneth Butterfield Jr. (born April 27, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 1st congressional district from 2004 to 2022.

A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected in a special election after the resignation of Frank Ballance.

His district was in the state's northeastern corner, which included all or parts of 19 counties.

In 1953, he became the first African American elected to the city council in Wilson and the first black elected official in eastern North Carolina since Reconstruction.

Butterfield graduated from Charles H. Darden High School in Wilson.

He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in political science and sociology from North Carolina Central University (NCCU), a historically black university.

During his time at NCCU, Butterfield was active in voter registration activism, including coordinating voter registration drives in Durham and organizing a student march from the State Capitol in Raleigh to the Wilson County Courthouse to draw attention to the importance of voter registration.

He served from 1968 to 1970 and was honorably discharged, and he returned to NCCU to complete his undergraduate degree.

In describing his racial identity as a black man, he has pointed to his African heritage, as a direct descendant of enslaved people.

He grew up in racially segregated North Carolina, living in "East Wilson", where he attended black schools.

He spent his childhood as a firsthand witness to the disenfranchisement of his black community originating as part of a targeted campaign to remove his father from the Board of Aldermen.

He is the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

After completing law school, Butterfield began a 14-year legal career as a civil rights attorney, practicing across eastern North Carolina.

During this time, he developed his reputation, winning several voting-rights cases.

After completing his bachelor's degree, Butterfield attended the NCCU School of Law, receiving a Juris Doctor degree in 1974.

During his junior year at NCCU, Butterfield was drafted into the United States Army and stationed at Fort Bragg Army installation in Fayetteville.

In 1988, Butterfield was elected Resident Superior Court judge in judicial district 7BC.

Beginning on January 1, 1989, and for the next 12 years, he presided over civil and criminal court in 46 North Carolina counties.

A longtime advocate of civil rights, Butterfield was appointed an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court by Governor Mike Easley in 2001, retaining the position until 2003.

In February 2001, Governor Mike Easley appointed him to the North Carolina Supreme Court.

In 2002, Butterfield lost his seat on the Supreme Court, but he returned to the Superior Court bench by special appointment of Governor Easley.

He served in that position until his retirement in May 2004 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Butterfield was first elected to the House of Representatives in a special election on July 20, 2004, to fill the seat of Frank Ballance, who had resigned after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering.

He assumed office on July 21, 2004.

Butterfield was elected to Congress in a special election on July 20, 2004, to fill the unexpired term of Representative Frank Ballance, who had resigned for health reasons.

He defeated Republican nominee Greg Dority and Libertarian Party nominee Tom Eisenmenger.

Butterfield was sworn into office on July 21, 2004.

On July 20, 2004, Butterfield won the Democratic primary, entitling him to run in the November general election.

He was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and served as its chair from 2015 to 2017.

In November 2021, Butterfield announced that he would not run for re-election in 2022.

On December 30, 2022, Butterfield resigned from his position to take up a lobbying position.

G. K. Butterfield was born and raised in the then segregated city of Wilson, North Carolina.

Butterfield came from a prominent black family with a long history in North Carolina.

Both of Butterfield's parents were mixed-race Americans.

His maternal grandfather, Rev Fred Davis, was a child of a former slave (Judah Davis) and a white man (Joe Davis).

His mother, Addie, taught elementary school for 48 years in some of North Carolina's poorest communities.

She was keenly focused on ensuring that her students learned to read.

Butterfield's father, G. K. Butterfield Sr., was an immigrant from Bermuda.

As a graduate of Meharry Medical College, he practiced dentistry for 50 years in the poor, segregated community of East Wilson.