Local Government
Hiram Revels
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One of the greatest successes of the freedmen in Reconstruction was election to local government positions. 12 counties in Mississippi elected black sheriffs, including John R. Lynch who rose to become the first black speaker in the lower house of the state legislature. Lynch would become a symbol of black success, wealthy and influential, but would also be criticized for ignoring the economic needs of the freedmen, especially after he was elected to 3 terms in the House of Representatives. Lynch and Robert Smalls of South Carolina, who served 5 terms, were among the 22 blacks from the South who went to Congress. Joseph Rainey of South Carolina was the first black member of the House of Representatives, elected in October and sworn in Dec. 12, 1870. Hiram Revels was the first black Senator in Congress, selected Jan. 20, 1870 by the state legislature to fill the unexpired term of Jeff Davis, was seated Feb. 25 by a Senate vote of 48-8, and represented the importance of ministers in providing leadership during the transition from slavery to freedom. During his brief term in Washington DC, he helped the cause of black mechanics who were exluded from working at the Washington Navy Yard. After his term expired on March 3, 1871, he became president of Alcorn University in Mississippi in 1872, the first land-grant college in the U.S. for black students. In a dispute with Republican governor Adelbert Ames, he resigned from Alcorn and returned to the ministry.
Montgomery councilman Holland Thompson was a Baptist layman, promoted freedman schools, free food distribution, appointment of black policemen. Blanch Bruce of Mississippi had been a sheriff, tax collector, and superintendant of education in Bolivar County where he helped improve the public schools for freedmen. But when he was elected the second black Senator from Mississippi 1875-1881, he became a wealthy plantation owner, married a light-skinned Ohio free black woman, was accepted into white society and became alienated from the poor freedmen that formed the majority of the population in many parts of Mississippi. William Finch was a tailor who became a city councilman in Atlanta, but few other blacks would be able to rise above the racism that made Georgia the least reconstructed state in the South.
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