James Worthington Mason (c. 1841 – November 1874) was a state senator, sheriff, and postmaster in Arkansas.

[1] He also served in the Arkansas Senate[2] and was the first African American postmaster in the United States.

[3] James W. Mason was born in about 1841 in Chicot County, Arkansas.

[4] His father, Elisha Worthington, was a Kentucky-born large landowner and the owner of the Sunnyside Plantation in Chicot County.

[4] In the summer of 1873, he was arrested under the suspicion of inciting a race war in the county.