He was a Republican who was part of the populist fusion political wave before later opposing civil rights for African Americans.

][2] Pritchard was apprenticed to the printer's trade, then moved to Bakersville, Mitchell County, North Carolina, in 1873.

[2] On October 21, 1898, Pritchard sent a letter to President William McKinley, requesting federal marshals to protect black voters in the upcoming election.

The letter was discussed by McKinley and his cabinet on October 24, but federal marshals were not sent as Governor Daniel Lindsay Russell had not made the request.

[5] Pritchard began reversing his views on civil rights in 1900, becoming a lily-white and opposing black officeholders.

[1] While in office Pritchard twice offered resolutions demanding that the Senate declare the grandfather clause a violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, but both attempts failed.

[1] He was interred in the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville,[2] near fellow North Carolina Senators Thomas Lanier Clingman and Zebulon Baird Vance.