North Carolina Democratic activist and onetime US Ambassador Jeanette Hyde has died at age 86

RALEIGH, N.C. — Jeanette Wallace Hyde, a longtime activist and fundraiser in North Carolina and national Democratic politics who served in the 1990s as the U.S. ambassador to several Caribbean countries, has died at age 86.

Hyde died on Monday at her Raleigh home following a period of declining health, family member Tom Hendrickson said Wednesday.

Hyde and her late husband, Wallace, were a political power couple, opening their home to state and national Democratic candidates. Hendrickson said the likes of Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, as well as state political notables Terry Sanford, Jim Hunt, Mike Easley, Beverly Perdue and Roy Cooper, visited the Hyde home for fundraisers.

Hyde was also involved in Democratic political strategy, particularly efforts to boost women’s influence in politics, as well as pushing for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, according to an obituary provided by the family. She served as a co-chair of the Clinton-Gore campaign in North Carolina in 1992.

Once president, Bill Clinton in 1994 appointed Hyde as ambassador to Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Kitts and Nevis. The Hydes lived in Barbados for four years, with her ambassadorship ending in 1998.

“Ambassador Hyde was a force to be reckoned with in our party,” state Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said Wednesday on X, adding that the state party “is a better place because of her steadfast leadership and grit.”

Hyde, who was born in Yadkin County in North Carolina’s mountains, had a varied career outside of politics, at one time teaching on the Greek island of Crete and working as a social worker and counselor with the North Carolina state courts system, the obituary said. She once operated multiple locations of her own clothing store in Fayetteville and was a cofounder of both Triangle Bank and North State Bank.

Hyde also served on many boards, including the state Board of Transportation. She received many awards, and her own education and philanthropic work was wide-ranging, with many links to Wake Forest University, where she once attended.

Wallace and Jeanette Hyde married in 1985. Wallace Hyde, whose career included work in the insurance field and education, died in 2013.

Jeanette Hyde’s survivors include four nieces, a nephew and a stepson. A memorial service will be held next Tuesday at White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh.

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The headline has been corrected to correct that Hyde died at age 86, not 89.