William Louis Poteat

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For other people with similar names, see William Poteat (disambiguation).

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). Poteat was conspicuous in many civic roles becoming a leader of the Progressive Movement in the South, and a champion of higher education. Though a Baptist, he defended the teaching of evolution as the "divine method of creation", arguing it was fully compatible with Christian beliefs.

Biography[]

Poteat was born in Caswell County, North Carolina to a noted Baptist, slave-owning family; among his siblings was Ida Isabella Poteat, who taught art at Meredith College for many years. His brother Edwin McNeill Poteat was a minister and educator, serving as president of Furman University from 1903 to 1918. William Louis 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 was a public intellectual and leading theological liberal among Baptists in the South.

Evolution[]

He first taught himself biology before studying at the University of Berlin. His studies convinced him of the Darwinian concepts of natural selection and evolution. Poteat reconciled his scientific conclusions with a modernist or liberal form of Christianity.[1] His beliefs were not shared by more conservative Baptists, who tried to remove him. Poteat fought back and survived, and helped persuade 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).

References[]

  1. ^ Hall, Randal L. (2000). William Louis Poteat: A Leader of the Progressive-Era South. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 49-59. ISBN 0-8131-2155-8

Further reading[]

  • Hall, Randal L. "William Louis Poteat: A Leader of the Progressive-Era South (University of Kentucky, 2000)
  • Linder, Suzanne Cameron. William Louis Poteat: Prophet of Progress (1966)
  • Sanchez, Paul A. "Christianity at the Crossroads: William Louis Poteat and Liberal Religion in the Baptist South" (Dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2020)
  • Woodard, John R. "Poteat, William Louis," *in William S. Powell, ed. Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, vol 5 (1994)
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