William Waightstill Avery was a North Carolina politician and lawyer. He served in the North Carolina House of Commons and State Senate prior to the U.S. Civil War. He represented North Carolina in the Provisional Confederate Congress. He was an outspoken advocate of higher education, graduate of the University of North Carolina and member of the Board of Trustees of the university. Avery owned a number of slaves, including 22 whom he inherited from his father.

The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, also known as the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, was a unicameral congress of deputies and delegates called together from the Southern States which became the governing body of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States from February 4, 1861, to February 17, 1862. It sat in Montgomery, Alabama, until May 21, 1861, when it adjourned to meet in Richmond, Virginia, on July 20, 1861. In both cities, it met in the existing state capitols which it shared with the respective secessionist state legislatures. It added new members as other states seceded from the Union and directed the election on November 6, 1861, at which a permanent government was elected.