The First Black Senator and US Representatives – All Republicans!

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1870 – 1871, The First Black Senator and US Representatives – All Republicans

The first African Americans to serve in the United States Congress were Republicans elected during the Reconstruction Era. After slaves were emancipated and granted citizenship rights, freedmen gained political representation in the Southern United States for the first time. White Democrats regained political power in state legislatures across the South and worked to restore white supremacy. By the presidential election of 1876, only three state legislatures were not controlled by white Democrats. The Compromise of 1877 completed the period of Redemption by white Democratic Southerners, with the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. State legislatures began to pass Jim Crow laws to establish racial segregation and restrict labor rights, movement and organizing by blacks. They passed some laws to restrict voter registration, aimed at suppressing the black vote.

From 1890–1908, Democratic state legislatures in the South disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites from voting by passing new constitutions or amendments, or other laws related to more restrictive electoral and voter registration and electoral rules. The Democratic Party essentially dominated the “Solid South” until the 1960s. As a result of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. Congress, despite filibusters by the Democratic Party, passed laws in the mid–1960s to end segregation and enforce constitutional civil rights and voting rights.

After the mid-1960’s, the less racist the South got, the more Republican it became . . .

First black Senator and Representatives – All Republicans:

Sen. Hiram Revels (R-MS)
Rep. Benjamin S. Turner (R-AL)
Rep. Robert DeLarge (R-SC)
Rep. Josiah Walls (R-FL)
Rep. Jefferson Long (R-GA)
Rep. Joseph Rainey (R-SC)
Rep. Robert B. Elliott (R-SC)

Sen. Hiram Rhodes Revels (R-MS), was born free in North Carolina. Revels served as an army chaplain for a black regiment during the Civil War and helped establish schools for the freedpeople. After the War, Revels moved to Mississippi. In 1869 the Mississippi legislature elected him to the United States Senate, in which he was the first African American member. After serving from February 1870 to March 1871, Revels continued his dedication to education.

Rep. Benjamin Sterling Turner (R-AL), was born a slave in 1825 in North Carolina. Turner moved to Alabama with his owner and was sold when he was twenty years old. During the Civil War, Turner raised enough money to purchase some property, and after emancipation he worked as a merchant and a farmer. In 1870, he successfully campaigned for an Alabama seat in the House of Representatives. He served one term in the Forty-second Congress, from 1871 to 1873.

Rep. Josiah Thomas Walls (R-FL), was born a slave in Winchester, Virginia, in 1842. In July 1863, in Philadelphia, he enlisted in the Third Infantry Regiment, United States Colored Troops. Discharged in October 1865 in Florida, he remained in that state. Walls was elected to represent Florida in Congress in 1870 but lost his seat early in 1873 when the candidate he had defeated successfully challenged his election. Walls had won an at-large seat in 1872, so he returned to Congress and won again in 1874, but early in 1876 he lost his seat once more as a result of another successful challenge to his election.

Also born into slavery in South Carolina, Rep. Joseph Rainey (R-SC), was the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the first black man to preside over the House. While enslaved, Rainey worked as a barber in South Carolina and in Philadelphia where he married in 1859. During the Civil War, he worked for the Confederacy until 1862 when he and his wife escaped and went to Bermuda. After the war he and his family returned to Charleston. In 1870 he was elected to the House of Representatives to complete the term of a congressman the House had refused to seat. He was reelected three times and served until 1879.

Rep. Robert Brown Elliott (R-SC) was born in England. In 1867, Elliot moved to South Carolina, where he practiced law and entered State politics. Elliot was elected to Congress in 1870 and reelected two years later, serving from 1871 until he resigned in November 1874. While serving in Congress, Elliot advocated a bill that later became the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Rep. Robert Carlos DeLarge (R-SC) was born to free parents in Aiken, South Carolina. De Large was elected to the House of Representatives and served from March 1871 until he lost his seat early in 1873 when the man he defeated successfully challenged the result of the election.

Rep. Jefferson Franklin Long (R-GA) was the second African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1870. He was born a slave in Knoxville, Georgia. Self-educated and trained as a tailor, he became a successful businessman in Macon, Georgia, once the Civil War had ended. After Georgia was readmitted into the Union in 1870, Jefferson Long was elected to fill a vacant seat in the House of Representatives. Long served in the House from January 16 to March 3, 1871. He was the first African American to speak on the House floor. Long did not run for reelection and returned to Macon, where he resumed his business career.

Resources:

1] National Archives – Records of Rights
2] Education @ Library of Virginia
3] African Americans in the United States Congress – Wikipedia
4]The Truth About Jim Crow