Marion A. Parrott

Marion Arendell Parrott (23 August 1918 – 27 October 2000) was an American lawyer.

• James Marion Parrott, The Citadel Sphinx Yearbook, Class of 1939, page 255.
  James Marion Parrott, The Citadel Sphinx Yearbook, Class of 1939, page 255.

Marion Arendell Parrott was the second son of William Thomas and Jeanette Johnson Parrott from Kinston, North Carolina, and a first cousin to George Parrott. Parrott graduated in 1839 from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, and then from the University of North Carolina School of Law. He served during World War II as a paratrooper with the United States Army 101st Airborne Division. He took part in the Battle of Normandy early on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). Two weeks later, he was captured in northern France, and imprisoned in Szubin, Poland. On Christmas 1944, he escaped from the prison camp made his way to Russia. From there he returned to his unit in France and took part in the final advance into Germany at war’s end, at which point he was discharged as a Major.

Parrott was a former member of the North Carolina General Assembly, where he was chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, and one of the founders of Arendell Parrott Academy, which was named for his son who died in 1961, and served as its first president. He also served as a director of the controversial Pioneer Fund from 1973 to 2002.

In a recent history of the press coverage of the U.S. civil rights movement, Parrott is described as a "white supremacist who wanted to mount a challenge to the Daniels family's Raleigh News & Observer." He was unsuccessful in convincing Tom Waring, another segrationist and a South Carolina journalist, to found a competing newspaper.

References

• Begos, Kevin (December 11, 2002). Benefactor With a Racist Bent: Wealthy recluse apparently liked the looks and potential of Bowman Gray's new medical-genetics department. Winston-Salem Journal
• Pioneer Fund Founders and Former Directors