James Oliver Eastland was an American attorney, plantation owner, and politician from Mississippi. A Democrat, he served in the United States Senate in 1941 and again from 1943 until his resignation on December 27, 1978. Eastland was a segregationist who led the Southern resistance against racial integration during the civil rights movement, often speaking of African Americans as "an inferior race". Eastland has been called the "Voice of the White South" and the "Godfather of Mississippi Politics".
From the first United States Congress in 1789 through the 116th Congress in 2020, 162 African Americans served in Congress. Meanwhile, the total number of all individuals who have served in Congress over that period is 12,348. Between 1789 and 2020, 152 have served in the House of Representatives, nine have served in the Senate, and one has served in both chambers. Voting members have totaled 156, while six others have served as delegates. Party membership has been 131 Democrats and 31 Republicans. While 13 members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 during the 92nd Congress, in the 116th Congress (2019-2020), 56 served, with 54 Democrats and two Republicans.
John Tyler Morgan was an American politician who was a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and later was elected for six terms as the U.S. Senator (1877–1907) from the state of Alabama. A prominent slaveholder before the Civil War, he became the second Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama during the Reconstruction era. Morgan and fellow Klan member Edmund W. Pettus became the ringleaders of white supremacy in Alabama and did more than anyone else in the state to overthrow Reconstruction efforts in the wake of the Civil War. When President Ulysses S. Grant dispatched U.S. Attorney General Amos Akerman to prosecute the Klan under the Enforcement Acts, Morgan was arrested and jailed.
The Civil Rights Act of 1960 is a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote. It dealt primarily with discriminatory laws and practices in the segregated South, by which African-Americans and Tejanos had been effectively disenfranchised since the late 19th and start of the 20th century. This was the fifth Civil Rights Act to be enacted in United States history. Over an 85-year period, it was preceded only by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, whose shortcomings largely influenced its creation. This law served to more effectively enforce what was set forth in the 1957 act through eliminating certain loopholes in it, and to establish additional provisions. Aside from addressing voting rights, the Civil Rights Act of 1960 also imposed criminal penalties for obstruction of court orders to limit resistance to the Supreme Court's school desegregation decisions, arranged for free education for military members' children, and banned the act of fleeing to avoid prosecution for property damage. The Civil Rights Act of 1960 was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
John Roy Lynch was an American writer, attorney, military officer, author, and Republican politician who served as Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and represented Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives.
Duncan Upshaw Fletcher was an American lawyer and politician of the Democratic Party. Senator Fletcher was the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Florida's history. He also served two terms as Mayor of Jacksonville and served in the Florida House of Representatives.
The Arkansas State Senate is the upper branch of the Arkansas General Assembly. The Senate consists of 35 members, each representing a district with about 83,000 people. Service in the state legislature is part-time, and many state senators have full-time jobs during the rest of the year. During the current term, the Senate contains twenty-nine Republicans and six Democrats.
The Arkansas State House of Representatives is the lower house of the Arkansas General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Arkansas. The House has 100 members elected from an equal number of constituencies across the state. Each district has an average population of 30,137, according to the 2020 federal census. Members are elected to two-year terms and, since the 2014 Amendment to the Arkansas Constitution, limited to sixteen years cumulative in either house.
John Glen Browder is a former member of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama's 3rd congressional district. Browder was born in Sumter, South Carolina and graduated in 1961 from Edmunds High School in Sumter. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in history at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, in 1965. He went on to obtain a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in political science from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1971.
Reverend John Robert Scott Sr. was a religious and political leader in Florida as well as a college president. He was born into slavery in Virginia. During the Reconstruction era he became a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church and a state legislator.
Joseph Newman Clinton was a politician and public official in Florida. An African American, he served in the Florida House of Representatives from Alachua County from 1881 to 1883, was a member of the city council in Gainesville from 1883 to 1885, and was a federal official in Pensacola and Tampa.
Simeon Farr was an American politician who was elected as a state representative in 1868 in South Carolina during the Reconstruction era. He represented Union County, South Carolina. His photograph was used in a composite of Radical Republican officials from South Carolina. His name is spelled Simon Farr in an 1868 House document.
William M. Thomas was an African-American Republican politician during the Reconstruction era. He was a minister affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He represented Colleton County in the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention and in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 until 1876. He was also an officer in the state militia and was a delegate to the 1876 Republican National Convention. He was categorized as "colored". He and Joseph D. Boston were the only African Americans to serve all four terms during the Reconstruction era in the South Carolina House.
Ovide Gregory, sometimes written as Ovid Gregory, was a politician in Alabama during the Reconstruction era. A Creole, he was multilingual and freeborn. He served in the Alabama House of Representatives.
Nimrod Snoddy was an A. M. E. preacher who served in the Alabama Legislature during the Reconstruction era. He was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1876 representing Greene County, Alabama. He held substantial property in 1870 and was living in Greene County, Alabama.
John Carraway was a tailor, seaman, civil rights activist, and politician in the United States. In Alabama during the Reconstruction era, he served as a delegate to the 1867 Alabama Constitutional Convention. He also served on Mobile, Alabama's city council, and in the Alabama House of Representatives.
Joseph E. Oates was a carpenter and politician in Florida, United States.
Mason Alexander Hargrave was an organizer in the African-American community. He spent his later years in Cleveland, Ohio, in a leadership role at the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He was involved in promoting use of the red, black, and green Pan-African flag and had it flown over Cleveland City Hall in 1974. He was an acolyte of Marcus Garvey and wrote a letter of "testimony" to U.S. Representative John Conyers in 1987 objecting to mail fraud charges against Garvey.
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.
William H. Moore was a state legislator in North Carolina. He served in the North Carolina House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He represented New Hanover County and served with other African Americans in the state legislature. His post office was in Wilmington, North Carolina. He served with Henry Brewington and Alfred Lloyd who also represented New Hanover in the 1874-1875 session. All three were African Americans.
