Frank White was a Union Army veteran, successful black businessman, and member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Portsmouth, Ohio. He operated a barbershop and bathhouse on Front Street and took a leading role in civic affairs in the City. Upon the death of Frederick Douglass in 1895, he organized a memorial service for the great abolitionist and champion of equal rights. White’s opposition to Jim Crow in Portsmouth was evident in his public comments in April 1905, when he complained: "I think I'm as clean and dress as well as any white or colored man, yet (raising his voice) I can't go into certain places in town and get a glass of soda water. I can't sit down at a fountain, while the lowest kind of white man is permitted to." This protest set the stage for the controversy involving AME Bishop W. B. Derrick, during the annual meeting of the Ohio Conference in September 1905.