{{Short description|American minister, laborer and politician (1803–1896)}} '''Cuffee Mayo''', sometimes spelled '''Cuffie Mayo''', (1803 – January 14, 1896) was a minister, laborer, and politician in North Carolina. He was a Republican.
== Early life == Cuffee Mayo was born free in Virginia in 1803. His family moved to Warren County, North Carolina by 1808 and settled in Granville County by 1840. He worked as a blacksmith and a minister.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://coastalreview.org/2021/01/memory-keepers-aim-to-tell-ncs-full-history/|title='Memory Keepers' Aim to Tell NC's Full History|first=Jennifer|last=Allen|date=January 7, 2021|website=Coastal Review|publisher=North Carolina Coastal Federation|access-date=July 18, 2025}}</ref>
== Political career == Mayo was one of 13 colored delegates elected to the 1868 North Carolina constitutional convention.{{sfn|Bernstein|1949|p=391}} He served on the body's Committee on Legislature.{{sfn|Bernstein|1949|p=395}} During its proceedings he voted in support of making superior court judges subject to popular election{{sfn|Bernstein|1949|p=399}} and opposed the inclusion of a loyalty oath for prospective voter registrants to federal laws and the U.S. Constitution in the hopes of letting "more become eligible" to vote.{{sfn|Bernstein|1949|p=403}}
Mayo was one of 17 colored men elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1868,{{sfn|Balanoff|1972|p=23}} representing Granville County in that body for a term from 1868 to 1870.{{sfn|Balanoff|1972|p=55}} In both the first and second sessions of the 1868 legislature he served on the Committee on Claims.{{sfn|Balanoff|1972|p=31}} In a March 1869 debate he opposed the re-enfranchisement of Confederate veterans, citing the opposition of many of them to the state legislature and to the U.S. Congress.{{sfn|Balanoff|1972|p=33}} He participated in the Republican Party's Granville County convention in July 1876.<ref>{{cite news| title = The Radical "Pow-wow" of '76| newspaper = The Oxford Torchlight| page = 3| volume = 4| issue = 6| date = July 11, 1876| url = https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073071/1876-07-11/ed-1/seq-3/}}</ref>
== Later life == Mayo died on January 14, 1896 at his home outside of Oxford.<ref>{{cite news| title = A Few Bites.| newspaper = Public Ledger| volume = IX| issue = 1| page = 1| date = January 17, 1896| url = https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073057/1896-01-17/ed-1/seq-1/}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
== Works cited == * {{cite journal| last = Balanoff| first = Elizabeth| title = Negro Legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872| journal = The North Carolina Historical Review| volume = 49| issue = 1| pages = 22–55| date = January 1972| jstor = 23529002}} * {{cite journal| last = Bernstein| first = Leonard| title = The Participation of Negro Delegates in the Constitutional Convention of 1868 in North Carolina| journal = The Journal of Negro History| volume = 34| issue = 4| pages = 391–409| date = October 1949| jstor = 2715607}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayo, Cuffee}} Category:Members of the North Carolina House of Representatives Category:African-American politicians of the Reconstruction era Category:1803 births Category:1896 deaths Category:19th-century members of the North Carolina General Assembly