Edwin Belcher | |
---|---|
Member of the GeorgiaHouseofRepresentatives from the Wilkes County, Georgia district | |
In office 1868–? | |
Personal details | |
Born | c. 1845 |
Political party | Republican |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Branch/service | United States Army |
Edwin Belcher (born c. 1845) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, a Freedmen Bureau official in Monroe County, Georgia after the war, and then a state senator in the Georgia Legislature representing Wilkes County, Georgia during the Reconstruction Era.
Edwin Belcher reportedly served in a white regiment and was twice taken prisoner during the Civil War. When his background was discovered he reportedly said he did his duty like any other soldier. [1]
Belcher was also appointed an assessor of revenue for Georgia's third district by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant and was later appointed by Grant as postmaster in Macon, Georgia. [1] After the 1868 election the legislature refused to seat African Americans. More than two dozen were turned away but Belcher and a few others were allowed to remain because they had light complexions and it could not be proved they were 1/8 or more "Negro". [2] The others allowed to remain in their elected offices were Madison Davis of Clarke County, F. H. Fyall of Macon County and Thomas P. Beard of Richmond County. [3]
In 1872 he graduated from Howard University's law school (founded in 1869) and was admitted to the bar in Washington D.C. [1] His brother Eugene R. Belcher was also part of one of the earliest Howard University Law School classes. [4] [5]
In 1878, Belcher wrote a letter introducing himself to William Lloyd Garrison. [6] In the letter he says he was "born the slave of my father".
Drew S. Days III, former Solicitor General of the United States, is a descendant of the Belcher family. [7]
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Landon Cabell Garland (1810–1895), an American, was professor of physics and history and university president three times at different Southern Universities while living in the Southern United States for his entire life. He served as the second president of Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, from 1836 to 1846; then professor from 1847 to 1855, and then third president of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from 1855 to 1867; and first chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1875 to 1893. He was an apologist for slavery in the United States before the Civil War, but afterward became a vociferous spokesperson against slavery.
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Lloyd Garrison Wheeler, Sr. (1848-1909) was an African-American attorney, businessman, philanthropist, and political leader. Wheeler was the first black American to practice law in the state of Illinois and was influential in the establishment of Provident Hospital of Cook County — a medical facility still extant in the 21st century.
The "Original 33" were the first 33 African-American members of the Georgia General Assembly. They were elected to office in 1868, during the Reconstruction era. They were among the first African-American state legislators in the United States. Twenty-four of the members were ministers. Upon taking office, white Democrats, then a minority in the Assembly, conspired with enough white Republicans to expel the African-American legislators from the Assembly in September 1868. The next year, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that African Americans had the right to hold office in Georgia. The expelled legislators were reinstated and took office in January 1870.
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Jane Cleo Marshall Lucas (1920-2013) was the first African American female to pass the Maryland bar exam.
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