Simon Peter William Drew, August 6, 1870 (Margarettsville, NC) - December 12, 1934 (Washington, DC)
VP candidate for Interracial Independent Political Party (aka National Interracial Party) (1928)
Running mate with nominee: Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951)
Popular vote: ? (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/531
The campaign:
It is difficult to say who was behind the June 4, 1928 organization of the Interracial Independent Political Party since there is so little information available about this group. Outside of a national ticket they did not seem to run any other candidates. Indeed, they did not appear to run a campaign at all and were not on any ballots.
At the head of the ticket was Euro-American political gadfly Jacob Coxey, who was also running for Congress in Ohio as an independent that year. The running mate was Washington DC African-American Rev. Simon P.W. Drew, who considered himself a Republican.
1928 was a pivotal year for racial demographics in the American political system. The Ku Klux Klan spent a considerable amount of energy attacking Democratic candidate Al Smith's Catholicism, which in turn had the effect of starting the swing of the Black vote to the Democrats for the first time in presidential voting history if newspaper endorsements are any indicator. That's one theory anyway.
To date I have found no evidence of Coxey or Drew making a public statement regarding their nominations by the IIPP.
Election history:
Said to have ran for Mayor of New York City, but I can find no record.
Other occupations: President of the National Ministers' Alliance, pastor at St. Stephens Baptist Church in Long Island City, NY 1894-1902, pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church in Boston 1902-1904, pastor of the Cosmopolitan Baptist Institutional Church (Washington, DC) 1904-1934, real estate agent, evangelist, activist, author
Buried: Margarettsville, NC
Notes:
Presided over a convention to aid ex-slaves in Sept. 1916.
Took part in a protest of the showing of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.
A Church power struggle spilled into DC court 1904.
Brother of inventor N.B. Drew.
Earned a M.A. from New York Training College 1896
Indicted for fraud in May 1930, charged with soliciting funds for an extinct school in Virginia, he
said he was raising money to reopen it. He was sentenced to a year in prison.
