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The Reconstruction era was a period in United States history and Southern United States history that followed the American Civil War and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the abolition of slavery and the reintegration of the eleven former Confederate States of America into the United States. During this period, three amendments were added to the United States Constitution to grant citizenship and equal civil rights to the newly freed slaves. To circumvent these legal achievements, the former Confederate states imposed poll taxes and literacy tests and engaged in terrorism to intimidate and control black people and to discourage or prevent them from voting.
Blanche Kelso Bruce was an American politician who represented Mississippi as a Republican in the United States Senate from 1875 to 1881. Born into slavery in Prince Edward County, Virginia, he went on to become the first elected African-American senator to serve a full term.
Marcellus Lovejoy Stearns was an American politician who served as the 11th Governor of Florida from 1874 to 1877 during the Reconstruction Era. Originally from Maine, he also served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, losing an arm, and served in Florida's 1868 constitutional convention and in the Florida House of Representatives, including time as speaker.
Harrison Jackson Reed was an American editor and politician who had most of his political career in Florida. He was elected in 1868 as the ninth Governor of Florida, serving until 1873 during the Reconstruction era. Born in Littleton, Massachusetts, he moved as a youth with his family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he had a grocery store and started farming. He also owned and edited the Milwaukee Sentinel for several years.
Josiah Thomas Walls was a United States congressman who served three terms in the U.S. Congress between 1871 and 1876. He was one of the first African Americans in the United States Congress elected during the Reconstruction Era, and the first black person to be elected to Congress from Florida. He also served four terms in the Florida Senate.
Charles William Jones was an American attorney and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Florida from 1875 to 1887. Jones abandoned his seat near the end of his second term, and it remained vacant for a year until a successor was elected. Jones was later diagnosed as mentally ill, and was hospitalized at a Dearborn, Michigan asylum for seven years before his death.
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.
Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs was a member of the 1885 Florida Constitutional Convention, served in the Florida House of Representatives, and was a school administrator. He was nominated to West Point by Representative Josiah T. Walls, who was also African American.
David Wyatt Aiken was a slave owner, Confederate army officer during the American Civil War and a reconstruction era five-term United States Congressman from South Carolina.
George G. McWhorter was a lawyer and Democratic Party politician who served on the Florida Supreme Court from 1885 to 1887.
James Cloudis Smith is an American lawyer who served as the 32nd Florida Attorney General from 1979 to 1987 and 21st and 24th Secretary of State of Florida from 1987 to 1995 and from 2002 until 2003. He currently chairs the Florida State University Board of Trustees.
Charles H. Pearce (1817–1887) was a religious and political leader in Florida. An African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister, he was dispatched to Florida in 1865, after the American Civil War. He had previously been a missionary in Canada after moving from Maryland to Connecticut. He helped bring the AME Church, the first independent black denomination in the United States, to Florida and worked to build its congregation during and after the Reconstruction era. In 1868 Pearce was elected as a delegate to the Florida Constitutional Convention of 1868. Later that year he was elected to the state legislature as a state senator from Leon County, Florida. He served numerous terms in the legislature, working to gain support for civil rights and public education for Floridians.
An election to the United States House of Representatives was held in Florida for the 39th Congress on November 29, 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, African Americans were 16.6% of the population of Florida. The African-American presence in the peninsula extends as far back as the early 18th century, when African-American slaves escaped from slavery in Georgia into the swamps of the peninsula. Black slaves were brought to Florida by Spanish conquistadors.
Sherman Conant was an American soldier and politician who served as the 9th Florida Attorney General during Reconstruction.
New National Era (1870–1874) was an African American newspaper, published in Washington, D.C., during the Reconstruction Era in the decade after the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Originally known as the New Era, the pioneering abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass renamed it in 1870 when he became the newspaper's publisher and editor.
William Bradwell was a religious leader and Reconstruction era politician in Florida. He lived in Jacksonville and represented Duval County in the Florida Legislature. An African American, he was a leader in the A.M.E. Church. He served in the Florida Senate representing Duval County, Florida from 1868 to 1870. He was a Republican and stated that his father was "one of the first representatives to the Legislature of Georgia".
Samuel W. Frazier was a farmer, justice of the peace and state legislator in Florida. He was elected to several terms in the Florida House of Representatives from Leon County.
Samuel Anderson was an American farmer, soldier, and state legislator from Florida. He represented Duval County, Florida in the Florida House of Representatives in 1887.
References
- ↑ Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867 - 1924 by Carter Brown Jr. University of Alabama Press (1998) pages 71, 72 and 145
- ↑ "General Acts and Resolutions Adopted by the Legislature of Florida". Office of the Floridian and Journal. November 5, 1887 – via Google Books.