a newspaper, the North Carolina Sentinel, based in Tarboro for three years. He resigned that position at the request of AME Zion bishops to become editor and business manager of the church's paper, the Star of Zion in 1885. He resigned that position at the General Conference of the AME Zion church in 1892, to be succeeded by George W. Clinton. Instead, that year Dancy took the position as editor of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Quarterly, which had been edited by Clinton. At the Quarterly Review he was closely associated with Booker T. Washington, who subsidized the paper. Later career With the support of Booker T. Washington, he was appointed collector of customs at Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1897, serving the position under presidents Harrison and McKinley. That year, he was also involved in the founding of Coleman Manufacturing Company, the first cotton mill in the United States owned and operated by African Americans In 1898, Dancy was a part of the founding of the National Afro-American Council, formed after the collapse of the National Afro-American League. T. Thomas Fortune was initially elected president, but he declined the position and Alexander Walters was selected. Dancy was elected Vice-President, Ida B. Wells secretary, and John W. Thompson treasurer. Washington was also a primary player in the group. Tensions rose in Wilmington during this period, and Dancy's position on an organization in opposition to legislation which prevented interracial marriages increased the tension. Tension came to a head in August with the Wilmington massacre of 1898, during which thousands of the city's African Americans were attacked, and Dancy was forced to flee the city. Dancy then was appointed to the position of recorder of deeds from 1901 to 1910. His home in Washington became a center of Southern black society in the nation's capital. Other activities Dancy was a prominent layman in the A. M. E. Zion church and was a lay delegate to the general conferences of the church in 1880 and 1884. He was also a prominent freemason. He was a trustee of Livingstone College and served as chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Afro-American Press Association. Personal life and death His first wife was Laura G. Coleman of Morganton, North Carolina. They had five children, two boys and three girls, two of whom died in infancy. Laura died in December 1890. In March 1893 he married Florence