T. Gillis Nutter

Thomas Gillis Nutter (1876 – 1959[1]) was an attorney, businessman, and politician in Charleston, West Virginia, United States.

[2] Nutter was active in the NAACP, serving as president for the West Virginia chapter in 1929, and in black fraternal organizations.

In that role, Nutter was instrumental in bringing a suit in 1929 that ended the racial segregation of public libraries in West Virginia.

[9] Nutter relocated to Charleston, West Virginia, the capital of the state, to open a legal office.

[5] As his stature grew in the community, Nutter became actively involved in the organization of the Mutual Savings and Loan Company of Charleston, at the time the only African American-owned bank in the state.

[5] After a time Nutter took a position with the West Virginia State Auditor's office as an Assistant Land Clerk.

[5] In 1915 Nutter was the author of a bill introduced into and passed by the West Virginia legislature, which amended the state's tax laws.

Nutter's candidacy was actively supported by former Governor George W. Atkinson and other leaders of the West Virginia Republican political establishment.

[6] The Democratic Party was important in the Northeast in mobilizing new urban populations including many black migrants and European immigrants.

In 1929, Nutter, as head of the West Virginia section of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons was instrumental in the desegregation of the state's public libraries.

[11] The court agreed with the plaintiffs that public libraries were not schools and were not subject to existing Jim Crow "separate but equal" rules.

"[2] In 1947, Nutter brought suit in federal court in a civil rights case to gain integration of a public pool in Montgomery, West Virginia.

He chose the federal court in the hopes of getting a fair hearing and also, if victorious, to gain a ruling that would benefit blacks in other places in the country.

According to an article on successful West Virginia blacks which he published in The Messenger in 1924, Nutter was teaching a Men's Sunday School at the church that year.

[14] His article featured the lives of 28 successful blacks, both male and female: business owners, professionals and educators, including his wife.