off the leash

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From Slavery to Capitol Hill: Benjamin Sterling Turner

Posted on February 23, 2022 by Ken Dowell

“In the year 1865 two thirds of the city of Selma was reduced to ashes by the United States Army . The Government made a display in that unfortunate city of its mighty power and conquered a gallant and high-toned people. They may have sinned wonderfully but they suffered terribly.

“War was once the glory of her sons, but they paid the penalty of their offense, and for one, I have no coals of fiery reproach to heap upon them now. Rather would I extend the olive branch of peace, and say to them, let the past be forgotten and let us all, from every sun and every clime, of every hue and even shade, go to work peacefully to build up the shattered temples of this great and glorious Republic.”

Those were the words of Alabama’s first Black congressman, Benjamin Sterling Turner, delivered on the floor of the House of Representatives on May 30, 1872. It was part of his appeal to gain funding to rebuild Selma. The Selma Times Journal, which reprinted part of Turner’s speech (Jan. 20, 2008) described Turner as a “good man who was born into slavery, yet was not embittered by it, and lived a lifetime serving his city, state and country well.”

Reconstruction Alabama, was a bitterly divided society of radical Republicans, carpetbaggers, resentful Confederates, Klansmen and sundry other white supremacists. Turner was the most unusual of public servants, a moderate.

Turner was born in 1825 in North Carolina. His owner, a widow named Elizabeth Turner, took him with her when she moved to Selma. Ben Turner was 5 at the time. Turner learned to read and write, likely by sitting in with the family’s white children during their lessons. When he was 20, Elizabeth Turner sold him to W.H. Gee who was the husband of her stepdaughter.

Gee deployed Turner to manage his livery stables and the Gee Hotel in Selma. Turner married an enslaved woman named Independence, but she was sold to a white man who took her as a mistress. When Gee died, Turner was inherited by his brother, James Gee. Based on his experience, James Gee assigned him to manage the St. James Hotel in Selma.

Turner’s education and experience served him well after emancipation and he became a successful farmer and merchant in Selma. He also set up a school for Black children there in 1865.

Turner first ran for Congress in 1870. His home district had a 52 percent Black electorate. He financed his campaign by selling a horse. His platform: universal suffrage and universal amnesty. He ended up winning 58 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat Samuel J. Cummings.

Turner only had two years in Congress. He spent it tirelessly advocating for the people in his district. This included: seeking repeal of a tax on cotton, urging reparations for ex-slaves, and supporting various economic revitalization bills. His appeals fell on deaf ears as Congress acted on none of these initiatives.

When he was up for re-election two years later, the Black vote was split between himself and another Black candidate, newspaper editor Philip Joseph. As a result, the Democratic candidate Frederick G. Bromberg was elected with 44 percent of the vote.

Turner returned to his businesses, but suffered serious losses during the depression of the 1870’s. He was nearly penniless when he died in 1894 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

More than 90 years later, in 1985, a group of Selma citizens, both Black and white, made donations to place a marker on Turner’s grave. The following year, at an unveiling of a portrait of Turner at the Old Depot Museum, the Montgomery Advertiser (Feb. 10, 1986), reported these comments from city leaders:

“’If John F. Kennedy had been aware of Benjamin Turner, he would have included him in ‘Profiles In Courage,’ said state Rep. W.F. ‘Noopie’ Cosby, D-Selma.

“’It’s high time his courage has been recognized,’ Selma City Council President Carl Morgan said.

“’This diverse group is more of a monument to him than the portrait,’ said state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma.”

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From Slavery to Capitol Hill: Robert Smalls

Posted on February 20, 2022 by Ken Dowell

“Darkness still blanketed the city of Charleston in the early hours of May 13, 1862, as a light breeze carried the briny scent of marshes across its quiet harbor.

“As thin wisps of smoke rose from the vessel’s smokestack high above the pilothouse, a 23-year-old enslaved man named Robert Smalls stood on the deck. In the next few hours, he and his young family would either find freedom from slavery or face certain death. Their future, he knew, now depended largely on his courage and the strength of his plan.

“At about 4:15 a.m., the Planter finally neared the formidable Fort Sumter, whose massive walls towered ominously about 50 feet above the water. Those on board the Planter were terrified. The only one not outwardly affected by fear was Smalls. ‘When we drew near the fort every man but Robert Smalls felt his knees giving way and the women began crying and praying again,’ Gourdine said. (Alfred Gouirdine one of the six other enslaved crew members.)

“As the Planter approached the fort, Smalls…pulled the whistle cord, offering ‘two long blows and a short one.’ It was the Confederate signal required to pass, which Smalls knew from earlier trips as a member of the Planter’s crew.

“With steam and smoke belching from her stacks and her paddle wheels churning through the dark water, the steamer headed straight toward the closest of the Union ships, while her crew rushed to take down the Confederate and South Carolina flags and hoist a white bedsheet to signal surrender.

“…(when) those on board the Planter realized they had actually made it to a Union ship. Some of the men began jumping, dancing, and shouting in an impromptu celebration, while others turned toward Fort Sumter and cursed it. All 16 were free from slavery for the first time in their lives.”

That story of how Robert Smalls stole a Confederate transport, freed himself and six other enslaved crew members and their families appeared in Smithsonian Magazine on June 13, 2017 (The Thrilling Tale of How Robert Smalls Seized a Confederate Ship and Sailed it to Freedom.)

When describing the accomplishments of Robert Smalls, it’s hard to know where to begin. There’s this daring escape and his later record as a naval war hero for the Union. He is seen as one of the key influences that convinced Lincoln to enlist Black men in the Union army. He led one of the first boycotts of segregated public transportation, an action that led to a city law in Philadelphia that integrated streetcars. He purchased the house of the man who had owned him as a slave. He created a school for black children in his home town of Beaufort, S.C., and started a newspaper in Beaufort. He also served a nearly unprecedented, for 19th century Black congressmen, five terms in the House of Representatives.

Smalls was born in Beaufort in 1839 to a slave mother, Lydia Polite. His father is unknown. Smalls was owned by John McKee and worked in his house. McKee later moved to Charleston and hired Smalls out on the waterfront. He progressively held jobs as a lamplighter, stevedore foreman, sail maker, rigger and sailor. He married Hannah Jones in 1856. She was an enslaved hotel maid in Charleston. They had two children, a daughter named Elizabeth and a son, Robert Jr. It was out of fear that his family members would be sold and separated that he hatched his escape plant. Hannah, Elizabeth and Robert Jr. were on the Planter when Smalls sailed it to freedom. He had become an expert in navigating the waters around Charleston and along the coast. With the start of the civil war he was conscripted into the Confederate Army and stationed on the Planter, a ship that was being used to transport munitions. After Smalls escape he continued to work on the Planter which was repurposed as a Union troop transport.

Smalls’ war record was one of the advantages he brought into his political career. Another was his ability to speak Gullah, a dialect common in the South Carolina lowlands. Like many other Black legislators at the time, he benefited from a redistricting effort that clumped Black voters into a single district, in this case Smalls hometown of Beaufort was part of a southeast coastal district with a 68 percent Black constituency. In his first bid for a house seat, in 1874, he won with 80 percent of the vote.

Smalls’ legislative record is marked by support of numerous civil rights issues as well as working to provide benefits for his coastal Caroline constituency. Most of the 19th century Black congressmen saw their Congressional representation limited to a single term, usually because of the voter suppression efforts of white supremacists. Smalls faced threatened violence, redistricting, voter intimidation and various legal maneuvers intended to unseat him, something that makes his five-term longevity all the more remarkable.

1876 saw the Democrats regain control of South Carolina, but Smalls still won reelection, defeating Democrat George Tillman with 52 percent of the vote. Having been unable to upend Smalls at the polls, the Democratic state government brought charges against him of accepting a $5,000 bribe while he had been a state senator. He was sentenced to three years, but released after three days while the conviction was appealed. He ended up being pardoned by Democratic Governor William Simpson in 1879 as part of a deal that involved dropping election law violations by Democrats.

The conviction was an electoral liability and in 1878, with voter intimidation now widespread in his district, he lost to Tillman. He lost again to Tillman in 1880 but contested the election, claiming his voters had been frightened away at the polls. The issue came before the full House, and with Democrats boycotting the vote, those present voted 141-1 to seat Smalls. In 1882, he failed to gain the Republican nomination, but the man who did, Edmund Mackey, died shortly after winning the general election and Smalls won a special election to regain his seat. He would be reelected one more time, in 1884, easily outpolling Democrat William Elliot.

After Smalls left the House of Representative in 1887, there would not be another Black congressman from South Carolina until 2011.

Andrew Billingsly, author of Yearning to Breathe Free: Andrew Smalls of South Carolina and His Families, said of the former congressman, “Robert Smalls is one of the greatest heroes of his generation. He left a legacy of service and he was the undisputed political, economic and social leader of Beaufort County for half a century after the war.” (The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, S.C., March 16, 1997).

Smalls was 75 when he died from malaria and diabetes in 1915. On the monument in the churchyard of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort where he is buried, there is an inscription of one of his quotes from the floor of the South Carolina legislature: “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

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From Slavery to Capitol Hill: George Washington Murray

Posted on February 16, 2022 by Ken Dowell

George Washington Murray was the only Black man in Congress when he served two terms in the House of Representatives from 1893 to 1897. The other Black legislators that I’ve highlighted in this series served terms in the 1870’s and 1880’s. By the time Murray was elected, suppression of the Black vote had largely succeeded in most of the South to disenfranchise the Black population. Murray spent most of his career fighting those efforts.

The Boston Public Library has a handwritten letter, dated April 5, 1877, from Murray to the journalist and noted abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in which he describes the situation in the southern states. He says, “”my people have been driven from their own homes by the fierce assassins in their midnight raids, and in many cases they have been brutally murdered…died martyrs for the cause of their principle and liberty.” He also talks about “one Colonel Ferguson,” from Mississippi, who Murray claims canvassed the state prior to the election forming “Sabre, Rifle and Artillery Clubs” to terrorize and suppress African-American and Republican voters.

Murray was born into slavery in Sumter County, S.C. His parents are unknown. While receiving no formal education as a child, he taught himself to read and write. In 1874 he enrolled in the University of South Carolina, which had been opened to Black students by the Reconstruction government. In 1877, after federal troops had left the south and with white Democrats in control of the state legislature, the Black students were expelled. Murray completed his education at the historically black State Normal Institution at Columbia.

As a free man, Murray worked as a farmer and a teacher. He held seven patents for farm equipment he invented. His inventions included an automatic cotton chopper and a fertilizer distributor.

Murray’s electoral history shows what it was like for a Black man to seek election in the South. In his first attempt to gain the Republican nomination for a House seat in 1890, he ran in what was known as South Carolina’s “shoestring district,” which included Charleston. As in many of the other southern states, South Carolina had gerrymandered a district to include most of the Black vote, thereby diluting its influence in the other districts. He lost to the incumbent, Charles Miller, who was also Black. Miller lost the general election to Democrat William Elliot.

In 1892, Murray tried again. After winning the Republican nomination he faced the Democrat E.M Moise in the general election. There were numerous reports of votes for Murray being thrown out for trivial reasons. Ballots a sixteenth of an inch too short were discarded as were some in which the precinct manager failed to include the precinct number. Mosie was declared the winner. But Moise had been at odds with the controlling group of Democrats and when the results came before the board of elections, they declared that Murray had won by 40 votes.

In his reelection bid in 1894, Murray had to run in a different district as the Democratic legislature had broken up the old “shoestring district.” Again his opponent, this time it was former rep William Elliott, was initially declared the winner. Murray again appealed and when he got nowhere at the state level, took his case to the House in Washington. Among the evidence Murray brought: ballot boxes in three predominantly Republican counties were never opened and in some black precincts, the polls never opened. There were also reports of Elliott himself standing in front of ballot boxes intimidating black voters. The House voted to seat Murray, by a 153-33 vote. By the time Murray sought reelection again in 1896, South Carolina Democrats had amended the state constitution and at the polling locations that meant residency requirements, literacy tests, poll taxes and property requirements. This time, Elliott got 67 percent of the vote. When Murray left Congress in 1897, there would not be another Black representative from South Carolina for 100 years.

A syndicated wire service report on election fraud that I found in the Chadron Record of Chadron, Neb., on March 5, 1897, had this to say: “In the seven extreme Southern States, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, the population in 1890 was 3,306,465 greater than in 1870 yet the vote of 1896 was 195,003 less than In 1876. George Washington Murray is entitled to the respect and thanks of every patriotic citizen irrespective of race, color or previous condition of servitude for calling attention to these facts.”

On the house floor, a good deal of Murray’s time was spent trying to fight off the voter suppression efforts of white supremacists. In 1893, Virginia Representative Henry Tucker introduced a bill calling for the removal of federal marshals and impartial election supervisors. Murray took the floor, “While I can not persuade myself that there can be found here and in the Senate enough cruel and wicked men to make this law effective, still if I am disappointed in that…I hope that the broad–souled and philanthropic man occupying the Executive chair is too brave and humane to join in this cowardly onslaught to strike down the walls impaling the last vestige of liberty to a helpless class of people.” Congress passed the bill and President Grover Cleveland signed it.

The Yorkville Enquirer, York, S.C., April 24, 1895, reported on Murray’s appeal in that town: “Ex-Congressman George Washington Murray, colored, was in Yorkville last Thursday night, and delivered an address to a large assemblage of colored people in the Wesleyan M. E. church. The object of his visit was to secure contributions toward a fund of $2,000 which his people are trying to raise for the purpose of pushing the fight that has already been inaugurated against the registration laws of this State. He claimed that his people had no desire to rule this State again; but, at the same time, there can be no doubt of the fact that it is of the utmost importance to them that they shall retain their voice in the election of their representatives and other public officers. He made quite an impression on his hearers, and succeeded not only in raising a small subscription on the spot; but also in organizing committees to make still further collections.”

His time in Congress done, Murray returned to farming. By the turn of the century, he had amassed some substantial amount of farmland in his home county. He leased that land in small plots to farmers to grow cotton. At one time there were some 200 farmers working plots leased by Murray, After two of his tenants brought him to court over a contract dispute, he was convicted of forgery and sentenced to three years. Rather than turn himself in, Murray fled to Chicago. A later South Caroline governor, Coleman Blease, pardoned him in 1915.

Murray spent his later years delivering lectures on race relations around the country. His speeches were consolidated into two books: Race Ideals: Effects, Cause and Remedy for Afro–American Race Troubles (1914) and Light in Dark Places (1925). He died of a stroke at home in 1926.

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From Slavery to Capitol Hill: John Roy Lynch

Posted on February 13, 2022 by Ken Dowell

John Roy Lynch wasn’t just the only Black man to represent Mississippi in Congress for more than a century. He was a veteran who rose to major in the Army, a lawyer, a successful businessman and an author. And this is a guy who started life as a slave.

Lynch was born on the Tacony Plantation in Vidalia, Louisiana, in 1847. His father, an Irish immigrant named Patrick Lynch, worked as an overseer on the plantation. His mother, Catherine White, was a mixed-race slave. She was Patrick’s common law wife, interracial marriage being illegal at the time. Patrick tried to keep the family together and had a plan to buy Catherine, John and his two brothers and free them, but he died before achieving that goal. After his death, the family was sold to Arthur Vidal Davis, a Natchez, Miss., planter. Davis agreed to keep the family together, Catherine worked in the household, John in the fields. They were liberated in 1863 after the Emancipation Proclamation. John was 16 at the time.

Lynch would go on to serve three terms in Congress. He was elected from a coastal Mississippi district that included Natchez. At the time of his first election in 1873, the district was 55% Black. Along the way in his political career Lynch achieved a number of firsts. He was elected to the state house of representatives in 1869 and in 1872 he was chosen to be speaker of the house, the first Black man to hold that position in any state. He was 25 at the time. When he took his seat in the 43rd Congress in 1873 he was, at 26, the youngest member of the House. Several years later, in 1884, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention and delivered a keynote address, the first African-American to do so.

As a legislator, Lynch focused mostly on economic issues aimed at helping his constituents. He sought funding for an orphanage damaged during the Civil War, he sponsored legislation seeking reimbursement for depositors who lost money due to the failure of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company and sought funding to improve the Mississippi River shoreline. He was a member of the Committee on Mines and the Committee on Expenditures.

He also was an avid supporter of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which prohibited discrimination in public places, including public transportation and restrooms. Following is an excerpt from a speech Lynch made on the House floor supporting that legislation:

“I am treated, not as an American citizen, but as a brute. Forced to occupy a filthy smoking-car both night and day, with drunkards, gamblers, and criminals; and for what? Not that I am unable or unwilling to pay my way; not that I am obnoxious in my personal appearance or disrespectful in my conduct; but simply because I happen to be of a darker complexion… Mr. Speaker, if this unjust discrimination is to be longer tolerated by the American people, which I do not, cannot, and will not believe until I am forced to do so, then I can only say with sorrow and regret that our boasted civilization is a fraud; our republican institutions a failure; our social system a disgrace; and our religion a complete hypocrisy.”

Lynch’s military service started right after he was emancipated. During the civil war he served as a cook for the 49th Illinois Volunteer regiment. Thirty some years later, during the Spanish-American War, he was commissioned a major in the Army and appointed paymaster by President McKinley. He served in both Cuba and the Philippines.

In between his stints in Congress and his military gigs, Lynch at one time ran a successful photography business. He was admitted to the bar in Mississippi and practiced law.

Later in life, this man who at one time had sought to further his education by eavesdropping near a open window at the white school in Natchez, turned to writing. His most notable work was The Facts of Reconstruction, published in 1913. It was written in response to some works by white historians that negatively portrayed the role of the Black Republicans after the Civil War. He was a contributor to the Journal of Negro History and when he died he was working on his autobiography. Reminiscences of an Active Life: The Autobiography of John Roy Lynch was eventually published in 1970. A new edition was published by the University of Mississippi Press in 2007.

In 1974 a street in Jackson, Miss., was named after Lynch. On that occasion (May 3, 1974) the Jackson Clarion Ledger had this to say: “Lynch was elected to the legislature at the youthful age of 22, and was elected speaker at 25. In 1873, his colleagues presented him with a gold watch and chain. A prominent white Democrat proposed a resolution thanking Lynch for his ‘dignity, impartiality, and courtesy.’ In 1880, the Jackson Clarion referred to him as, ‘the ablest man of his race in the South.’”

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Posted in History | Tagged Black congressman, Black History Month, Civil Rights Act of 1875, history, John Roy Lynch, Mississippi, Natchez, Resconstruction | 11 Comments

From Slavery to Capitol Hill: John Adams Hyman

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Ken Dowell

John Adams Hyman was the first Black to represent North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. But perhaps the most impressive part of Hyman’s career is what he went through to educate himself.

Hyman was born into slavery in Warrenton, N.C., in 1840. At the time, nothing struck fear in the hearts of Southern slaveholders more than the prospect of an educated slave. While it was illegal throughout the southern states to educate slaves, Hyman took it upon himself to learn to read and write. He got a little help from a jeweler named King for whom he was working as a janitor. King, being from Pennsylvania, wasn’t quite up to the repressive ways of the South, and helped Hyman out, including giving him a spelling book. When that was discovered, Hyman’s owner was forced to sell him to a slaveholder in Alabama.

That set off a continuing chain whereby Hyman, largely because of his continuing efforts to learn to read and write, was sold at least eight times during his 25 years of slavery. When emancipation came in 1865, Hyman headed back to Warrenton and enrolled in a school where he got an elementary education.

Now freed and literate, it didn’t take long for Hyman to get involved in politics. In 1867, he was a delegate at the Republican State Convention and later that year was elected to the Warren County delegation to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention. In 1868, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate, where he would serve for six years.

In 1872, Hyman ran an unsuccessful campaign to win the Republican nomination for a seat in the House of Representatives in the second district. He lost out to the incumbent Clarence Thomas. The district that included Hyman’s hometown of Warrenton was known as the “Black Second.” The state Democrats had gerrymandered the legislative map for the state in order to concentrate a large proportion of the black vote in the second district, thus rendering neighboring districts safely Democratic, and white. Hyman tried again in 1874 and this time he prevailed on the 29th ballot at the nominating convention. In the election, he defeated the Democratic candidate, George W. Blount, winning 62 percent of the vote.

Hyman’s term in the legislature was undistinguished. The Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly African-American newspaper, had this description of Hyman’s experience in Congress (May 14, 1949): “The Forty-fourth Congress was Democratic, and Hyman received only an obscure appointment on the Manufactures Committee. He submitted several measures that were of importance to the state as a whole, including one to provide a new courthouse for Jones County in place of the one destroyed by Union troops, and a bill to erect a lighthouse on Pimlico Sound. Like many other colored Congressmen, Hyman was interested in the lot of the Indians, and he introduced a measure to provide relief for the Western Cherokees. So biased was the political complexion of the House that none of these proposals even came to a vote.”

By 1876, whites had taken control of the state Republican Party and Hyman lost out on the nomination to run for re-election to a former state Reconstruction Governor Curtis Brogden.

Throughout his political career, Hyman was hounded by insinuations of corruption. It started while he was a member of the state senate, what was apparently a pretty corrupt place. There was talk he was involved in some payoffs involving the location of a penitentiary, that he took money from lobbyists during what would become a railroad bond scandal and that he accepted payment in return for endorsing a congressional candidate. Hyman was never formally charged with any of these irregularities. But the hints of corruption were used by his political opponents.

The Southern Home, a short-lived Democratic newspaper based in Charlotte, published this piece of invective on Aug. 14, 1876: “John Adams Hyman, a negro congressman from fhe 2nd District of North Carolina has developed a desire to get possession of other people’s wealth without rendering an equivalent therefor. He will retire from Congress and become a candidate for the North Carolina penitentiary.”

Not long after, he was expelled from the Warrenton Colored Methodist Church, where he was a steward and Sunday school superintendent, as a result of charges that he embezzled Sunday school funds.

He attempted again in 1878 and then again in 1888 to gain the Republican nomination for the Congressional seat, but was defeated. The following year he moved north to Washington, D.C., where he got a job with the Department of Agriculture. He passed away in 1891 after suffering from a stroke in his home.

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