James Youman Eaton

[2] Following graduation from the Boydton Academic and Bible Institute,[3] Eaton earned a bachelor of laws degree from Shaw University in 1894[2] and passed the state bar exam that September.

[7] He was elected as president of the Vance County Colored Teachers' Association at its formation on April 9, 1898.

[1] Eaton was selected to run for a seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives on the Republican ticket in September 1898.

[12] During the 1899 session, in which he was one of only three black representatives,[13] he served on a subcommittee of the legislature's joint Committee of Institutions for the Insane.

A funeral was held for him in Henderson on July 3[14] and his body was interred in a family plot in Blacknall Cemetery.