Curtis Pollard | |
---|---|
Louisiana State Senate | |
In office 1868–1870 | |
Louisiana State Senate | |
In office 1872–1876 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1806/7 Virginia |
Political party | Republican |
Curtis Pollard was a minister,farmer,store keeper and state legislator who served in the Louisiana State Senate during the Reconstruction era. [1]
Pollard was born in Virginia and in the 1870 United States census Pollard was listed as being aged 63. [2] He was a Baptist preacher who travelled to Madison Parish,Louisiana in 1864 to start a farm. [2] He was successful at farming and obtained recognition in the local community leading to his selection as convention delegate and then his senatorial nomination. [2]
He was a delegate to the Louisiana constitutional conventions in 1867 [3] and 1868 representing Franklin Parish and Madison Parish and in 1867 he served on the Committee on the Executive Department. [2] [1]
Pollard was nominated to run for the state senate by the Republicans [4] and was elected to the Louisiana State Senate for the 1868 to 1870 session. [1] He was almost the nomination for the United States senator for Louisiana which he lost to Oscar James Dunn after interrupting his own potential nominator. [5] At the time Pollard was described as "a black man,uncompromisingly and a Republican equally uncompromising". [5] In his first senatorial session he served on a Committee for Auditing and Supervising the Expenses of the Senate as well as one for charitable and public institutions. [2]
For the 1870 to 1872 senatorial session he lost the nomination to William L. McMillen [6] but Pollard decided to run as an independent Republican candidate, [7] but lost to McMillen. He was living in Delta,Louisiana at the time. [8]
Pollard was then again elected to serve in the Louisiana State Senate in 1872 representing the 17th senatorial district [9] and he served until 1876. [1]
Pollard was a partner in the Mississippi River Packet Company which was a black-owned enterprise. [1] He had also been a parish police jury and ran a grocery store until 1872. [1] He was a founder of the Bank of Delta in February 1874. [10]
He left his wife and children unwillingly when he was forced by armed men onto a steamboat in 1879 whilst helping emigrants leave to Kansas. [1]
Oscar James Dunn served as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana during the era of Reconstruction and was the first African American to act as governor of a U.S. state.
More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy,disenfranchisement,and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern states. Historian Canter Brown Jr. noted that in some states,such as Florida,the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The following is a partial list of notable African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900. Dates listed are the year that a term states or the range of years served if multiple terms.
Henderson Williams was a state legislator in Louisiana who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives for Madison Parish. He was first elected in 1868,and again to serve in the 1870-1872 session. Henderson was one of the "colored" legislators who appealed to U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant in a January 9,1872 letter to intervene in a dispute with fellow Republican governor Henry C. Warmoth.
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