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John Adams Hyman was a U.S. Congressman from North Carolina from 1875 to 1877. A Republican, he was the first African American to represent the state in the House of Representatives. He was elected from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district, including counties in the northeast around New Bern. Earlier he served in the North Carolina Senate.
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.
Benjamin Franklin Whittemore, also known as B. F. Whittemore, was a minister, politician, and publisher in the United States. After his theological studies, he was a minister and then a chaplain for Massachusetts regiments during the Civil War. Stationed in South Carolina at the war's end, he accepted the position of superintendent of education for the Freedmen's Bureau. A Republican, he was elected a U.S. Representative from South Carolina. He was censured 1870 for selling appointments to the United States Naval Academy and other military academies. He spent his later years in Massachusetts, where he was a publisher.
James Henry Harris was an American civil rights advocate, upholsterer, and politician. Born into slavery, he was freed as a young adult and worked as a carpenter's apprentice and worker before he went to Oberlin College in Ohio. For a time, he lived in Chatham, Ontario, where he was a member of the Chatham Vigilance Committee that aimed to prevent blacks being transported out of Canada and sold as slaves in the United States.
Benjamin Franklin Randolph was an American educator, spiritual advisor, newspaper editor who served as a South Carolina state senator during the Reconstruction Era. Randolph was selected to be one of the first African American Electors in the United States at the 1868 Republican National Convention for the Ulysses Grant Republican presidential ticket. Randolph also served as the chair of the state Republican Party Central Committee. He was a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention, where he played an important role in establishing the first universal public education system in the state, and in granting for the first time the right to vote to black men and non-property owning European-American men. On October 16, 1868, Randolph was assassinated by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Randolph Cemetery is a historic cemetery for African-Americans in Columbia, South Carolina. It was established in 1872 and expanded in 1899. It was named for Benjamin F. Randolph (1820–1868), who was reburied at the cemetery in 1871. Randolph was a militia leader protecting African Americans when he was assassinated. A memorial in his honor and for other African-American leaders killed was erected. Gravemarkers include both manufactured and vernacular homemade varieties. The cemetery holds eight Reconstruction Era state legislators. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Lucius Wimbush was a state legislator, businessman, and public official. After being freed from slavery, he became a state senator during the Reconstruction Era in South Carolina. Wimbush was elected from Chester County and was secretary of the Chester Union League. He is buried in Randolph Cemetery where eight other Reconstruction era legislators were also interred.
William Fabriel Myers was a lawyer and state senator in South Carolina. An African American, he was involved in politics during the Reconstruction Era. He served as a state senator from 1874 until 1878.
Joseph Crews was a Reconstruction militia leader who served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1874 until his assassination in 1875. He was the state's highest-ranking military official in the 1870s and was put in charge of the state militia whose main purpose was to protect African-American voters. African-Americans were 58.9% of the population of South Carolina in 1870. He was reportedly murdered by Democrats in the run-up to the 1876 South Carolina gubernatorial election.
Robert John Palmer was a tailor and politician born into slavery in South Carolina. Palmer was a state representative from 1876 to 1878 and had a tailor shop opposite the post office on Main Street in Columbia, South Carolina.
William Beverly Nash was a barber, shoe shine, porter, waiter, and state senator in South Carolina. An African American, Nash was born enslaved in Virginia, Nash gained his freedom at the age of 43 with the passage of the 13th Amendment. After the American Civil War, he became a state legislator during the Reconstruction Era. He was instrumental in drafting South Carolina's Constitution of 1868, and held several committee positions in the state government over his career. He held his office for 21 years before resigning.
Edward Charles Mickey was a Reconstruction era legislator in South Carolina. His occupation was listed as tailor and minister. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 until 1872. He was one of many African American legislators who served as Republicans in South Carolina's House and Senate in 1868. He represented Charleston County. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina.
William Edward Rose (1813–1893) founded the Rose Hotel, was a state senator, and a railroad president in South Carolina. He was elected to the South Carolina State Senate in 1868 during the Reconstruction era. He represented York County, South Carolina in the 48th general assembly, and in the 49th.
Huston J. Lomax was a legislator in South Carolina during the Reconstruction era. He was a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention, where he represented Abbeville County. He was elected to represent Abbeville County in the South Carolina Senate in 1870 but died before it convened. James Sproull Cothran was elected to replace him, but the election was protested and he was prevented from taking office.
Sancho Saunders was a member of South Carolina's House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He represented Chester County, South Carolina. He was documented as a literate Baptist minister who was a slave before the American Civil War. He was African American. His photograph was included in a montage of Radical Republican South Carolina legislators.
William Simons was a Reconstruction era politician in South Carolina. He was a member of the 48th and 49th South Carolina General Assembly from 1868 until 1872 and was one of the four representatives for Richland County. He was a Republican.
Joseph A. Greene was a state senator in South Carolina during the Reconstruction era, representing Orangeburg County in the 48th and 49th South Carolina General Assemblies from 1868 till 1871.
Henry W. Webb was a political leader in Reconstruction era South Carolina. He was a delegate to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868 and elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives the same year.
On the evening of October 20, 1870, Wade Perrin, a Republican Party member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, was assassinated by a group of white men affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. The murder took place in present-day Joanna, South Carolina, in rural southeastern Laurens County. Perrin had been re-elected to a second term in the legislature the day before, but riots in and around Laurens County on the day of the election spurred violence towards at least a dozen Republican members-elect, most of them African Americans. After being caught by the men and being made to dance, sing, and pray, they ordered Perrin to run away, at which point he was shot dead. He was found lying in the street with his pockets turned inside out. Perrin was honored with a funeral service held in the House chambers on January 31, 1871, with the House and State Senate both present. A total of six men were ultimately charged for Perrin's murder, as well as the murders of several other black legislators under similar circumstances.
Richard Tucker was a carpenter, undertaker, and state legislator in North Carolina. He represented Craven County in the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1870 and in the North Carolina Senate in 1874 during the Reconstruction era. In 1874 he was one of four African Americans in the North Carolina Senate, all Republicans. The North Carolina House had 13 African Americans. Both bodies had strong Democratic Party majorities during the session.
References
- 1 2 National register of Historic Places - Randolph Cemetery. 12 Dec 1994. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
- ↑ "South Carolina Department of Archives and History - Randolph Cemetery, Gravemarker of Samuel Benjamin Thompson". www.nationalregister.sc.gov. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
- 1 2 3 Page, Yolanda Williams (2007). Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-33429-0 . Retrieved 7 June 2020.
- ↑ "South Carolina During the Late 1800s - The 48th General Assembly (1868-1870)". www.carolana.com. Retrieved 6 June 2020.