George H. Rountree was born in Kinston (Lenoir County), North Carolina on July 7, 1855. Rountree was an attorney who served as legislator, president of the North Carolina Bar Association, and superior court judge (1913-1916). In 1898, Rountree served as the chairman of Wilmington's Democratic Party and played an influential role in the white supremacy campaign that unfolded that year. His organizational leadership during the Democratic takeover resulted in his election to the state legislature, where he continued to promote a white supremacist agenda as the chair of a legislative committee tasked with proposing constitutional reforms. The committee's reforms included literacy and tax requirements that disenfranchised Black citizens but also protected illiterate white voters through a loophole known as the Grandfather Clause. Rountree died in Wilmington on February 14, 1942.