George Clower was born around 1831 in Virginia and became a leader in the Republican Party in Monroe County, GA after the Civil War. He attended the Colored Educational Convention in Macon, the state Black convention of 1866, and was elected to the Georgia Assembly in 1868. Clower also worked as a school teacher during Reconstruction and as a voter organizer in Monroe County. Clower noticed that Blacks were being terminated from their white employers after voting Republican, and he worked with Union General John R. Lewis of the Freedmen’s Bureau to end white retaliation against Black voters. 

Clower organized “Grant Clubs” in support of former Union general Ulysses S. Grant as he ran for President. Many of these club organizers faced significant white retaliation and physical violence. A Black organizer in Dooly County, Georgia went into hiding after threats on his life, publishing an article in Augusta’s The National Republican arguing that “I have not been charged with any crime for which forty or fifty men should be after me, but simply a Republican, wanting to see the liberties of my race secured. These armed men are Democrats, sworn to kill me and all men getting up these clubs; some of them are officers of the law, Judges of the Courts, and Sheriffs. They are persecuting us under the name of keeping order and suppressing insurrections among my race.”  After the Dooly County club met outside Vienna, their meeting location was surrounded, and the president was arrested by white leaders in the town. 

Clower himself appealed to U.S. Grant for support, both political and financial. In a June 1872 letter to Grant supporting his election, he wrote: 

“We must Go to Work right now if We Expecte to Beate the Democrats party. Dear president if you Will help me I Will go to Work Wit away no man of my Colard can do more Good for the party than I Can… I am very poor and are not abel to do much for the party the Democrate party have offar me $5000.00 and told me I can get ten $1000.00 if I Will Go in to the Feald and Go to Work for them But I am republican Expect to Live and die one. I am a Member of the Legislature and have been for 4 years. Dear sir if you Will let me have some Money I Will do as much Good to organized as a man in the sate I am also a member of the state sentral Committe. Dear sir pleas Help. me if you can right away and I Will Go to Work for the presedenal Campe Pain   please let me here form you soon  Excuse bad Writing as I am a colard man.” 

In the 1870 census, Clower is listed as owning $1000 in real estate and $500 in personal property. He was living in Forsyth with his wife, Sarah, and their six children: Ned (15), Rosaina (12), Lucinde (11),  George (8), Sarah J. (4), Payton 2. Clower became an A.M.E minister living in Memphis, TN in his later years. 10 years later in the 1880 Census, he is listed as a Preacher living in Memphis with Sarah, and their children Rosanna, Lucinda, George H, Eliza, Payton, and John. 

While it is unclear where George Clower is buried, it is likely that he passed away in Memphis. Ned Frances and Payton Clowers are both buried along with Ned’s daughter at Whites Chapel Cemetery in Memphis.