M. T. Pope was an African American physician, businessman, and politician, was born near Rich Square in Northampton County, N.C., on 24 August 1858. He was member of the first graduating class of Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. He was one of only seven African American men allowed to vote in 1900 due to restrictive voter registration laws. In 1919, he ran for mayor of Raleigh as non-partisan African American. He was presented with this certificate of voter registration only after providing his father's freedman papers.