OT: Congressmen and Senators

Question:

I had an interesting question posed to me and I’d like to pass it on if anyone could be so kind as to answer it. How many black congressmen or senators has each of the Democratic and Republican parties had elected to these positions? Thanks in advance. Ken Wilson Proud Owner of Lord Valve, PMG, John Wheaton, Claude Lucas,  Freep the Xenophobe, Chuck, the rest of the  Union of Rightwing Idiots Needing Explanations (URINE)  and, at his own request, Karl Rovershank (aka Lars from Mars) Supporting the Troops at http://www.resisters.ca http://www.criticalhistory.com/

Response:

I think the history of these Senators reflects the changes in the nature of the Republican and Democractic parties since the civil war, a change we have discussed several times here.  There have been only 5 black Senators, one a former slave, and one also half Indian. Barack Obama, the newly elected senator from Illinois, is currently the only Black senator. He is the third Black senator since Reconstruction – the other two being Carole Moseley Braun (also Illinois, Land of Lincoln – a dem) and Edward Brooke ( Massachusetts – Rep). There were also two Black senators elected during the post civil war reconstruction. They were Hiram Rhoades Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both from Mississippi. Carol Moseley Braun Carol Moseley Braun was born in Chicago on August 16, 1947. Her father, a law enforcement officer, was a consummate renaissance man, a musician who mastered seven instruments and spoke several languages. Her mother was a medical technician. Together they encouraged their children to pursue excellence, embrace opportunity and follow their dreams. Her life reflects this philosophy. Ms. Moseley Braun has served her country as a United States Senator (1992-98), U.S. Ambassador (1999-2001), as well as County Executive Officer, State Representative, and Assistant United States Attorney. Since her return in 2001 from her ambassadorial posting to New Zealand, she has taught law and political science at Morris Brown College and DePaul University, along with a business law practice and business consultancy in Chicago. The hallmark of her public service has been dedication to the harmony of the community. She is an advocate of diversity and has consistently worked to build an inclusive society. Her extensive and constructive legislative record reflects this commitment to social justice and good government. Ms. Moseley Braun is a graduate of the Chicago Public Schools. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1968, and her law degree in 1972 from the University of Chicago. She joined the United States Attorney’s office in Chicago in 1973. As an Assistant United States Attorney, she worked primarily in the civil and appellate law areas and tried cases of national importance. Her work in housing, health policy, and environmental law won her the Attorney General’s Special Achievement award. She subsequently received over 300 awards for achievements in the public interest. She left the US Attorney’s office in 1977 to start a family. Her son, Matthew, is a computer engineer. As a homemaker, Ms. Moseley Braun volunteered her services on behalf of local environmental issues. Her energy and commitment inspired neighbors to encourage her to run for public office. In 1978, she was elected to the Illinois state legislature, the General Assembly. As a State Representative, she became recognized as a champion for education, governmental reform, and civil rights. As early as 1984, she proposed a moratorium on the application in Illinois of the death penalty. And in what became a landmark reapportionment case, Crosby vs. State Board of Elections, she successfully sued her own party and the state of Illinois on behalf of African American and Hispanic citizens. Soon thereafter, Ms. Moseley Braun was named Assistant Majority Leader; when she left the legislature in 1987, her colleagues recognized her in a resolution as "the conscience of the House." She served one term as Recorder of Deeds for Cook County, which includes Chicago, before running for the United States Senate. She won that race in November 1992, marking yet another historic first: first female senator from Illinois, first female African-American senator, first African-American Democratic senator. Edward William Brooke, born Oct. 26, 1919, Washington, D.C., was the first African American to be elected to the U.S. Senate in the 20th Century. He graduated from Howard University in 1941 and served in World War II as decorated captain in the combat infantry. After the War, he received two law degrees from Boston University and was editor of the law review. Shortly after beginning his law practice, Brooke entered politics as a Republican and ran twice for the Massachusetts legislature (1950 and 1952), loosing both times. Finally, after losing a bid for Secretary of State in 1960, Brook was elected Attorney General of Massachusetts and re-elected in 1964. In 1966 he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served two terms, loosing in 1978 to Democrat Paul Tsongas. Brooke opposed escalation of the Vietnam War and was the first Republican Senator to demand President Nixon’s resignation over Watergate. After leaving the Senate, Brooke resumed the practice of law, was Chairman of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition and, on June 23, 2004, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is now battling breast cancer and lives in Miami, Fla. Hiram Revels was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1822, but an exact birthplace has not been identified. He was born of mixed African and Croatan Indian heritage to free parents. On March 8, 1838 Revels was apprenticed to his brother, Elias B. Revels, as a barber in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Although Hiram Revels’ apprenticeship was to last until his 21st birthday in 1843, his brother died in 1841 leaving Hiram to manage the barber shop. Revels apparently left the barber shop to further his education. In 1844 he was a student at the Quaker school in Liberty, Indiana. He also attended school in Ohio and was a student of Knox College. Revels was ordained as a minister by the African Methodist Church and traveled extensively ministering to African American congregations in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Kansas. He eventually settled in Baltimore where he became principal of a school for African Americans as well as pastor of a local church. His ministerial and educational work would expand during the Civil War. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Hiram Revels turned his resources toward support for the Union cause in Maryland, a border state with divided loyalties. Revels aided in the organization of two regiments of African American troops from Maryland. Having moved to St. Louis to organize a school for African Americans, he recruited African American men for service in a Missouri regiment in 1863. His recruiting ability and ministerial training equipped Revels for active service as a Union chaplain serving with a Mississippi regiment of free blacks. At one point during his military service, Revels was the provost marshal of Vicksburg, the militarily important Mississippi River town and scene of a bloody and prolonged Union siege. At the conclusion of the war, Revels settled in Natchez, Mississippi and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He continued his pastoral duties and founded new churches. In 1868, Revels was elected alderman. Struggling to keep his political and pastoral duties separate and to avoid racial conflict, Revels earned the respect of both whites and African Americans. His success in managing these forces led to his election as a state senator from Adams County, Mississippi. In 1870 Revels was elected as the first African American member of the United States Senate. Ironically, Revels was elected to fill the position vacated by Jefferson Davis almost 10 years earlier. Revels took his seat in the Senate on February 25, 1870 and served through March 4, 1871, the remainder of Davis’ vacated term. Returning to Mississippi in 1871, Revels was named president of Alcorn College, the state’s first college for African American students. He was dismissed from the Alcorn presidency in 1874 by Governor Ames but returned to the position two years later. Revels retired from Alcorn in 1882. Aside from his duties at Alcorn College, Revels served as Secretary of State Ad Interim for Mississippi in 1873. Revels actively participated in the 1875 political campaign to oust the "carpet-bag" government of Mississippi. He defended his actions in a letter to President Ulysses Grant which was published in the Daily Times of Jackson, Mississippi. The next year he became editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate. While attending to these public activities, Revels actively continued his religious work. It was while attending a church conference in Aberdeen, Mississippi that Hiram Rhoades Revels died on January 16, 1901. Hiram Revels faced the dangers of racial conflict in the South of the Reconstruction era in a manner that won the respect of both whites and blacks. His life was dedicated to improving the spiritual and educational needs of the African American community in many states The first black person to serve a full term in the United States Senate, Blanche K. Bruce was born in slavery near Farmville, Virginia , on March 1, 1841. He was tutored by his master’s son and worked as a field hand and printer’s apprentice as his master moved him from Virginia to Mississippi and Missouri. Bruce escaped slavery at the opening of the Civil War and attempted to enlist in the Union Army. After the military refused his application, he taught school, briefly attended Oberlin College, and worked as a steamboat porter on the Mississippi River. In 1864 he settled in Hannibal Missouri, and organized the state’s first school for blacks. Five years later he moved to Mississippi where he entered local politics and established himself as a prosperous landowner. In quick succession he was appointed registrar of voters in Tallahatchie County, tax assessor of Bolivar County, and elected sheriff and tax collector of Bolivar where he also served as supervisor of education. On a trip to the state capital of Jackson in 1870, Bruce gained the attention of powerful white Republicans who dominated Mississippi’s Reconstruction government. These men secured more appointments for Bruce and made him the most recognized black political leader in the state. In … read more »

Response:

I couldn’t find a list but I did find a book on the subjet http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7418.html Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress First chapter here: http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/s7418.html Joseph Hayne Rainey (June 21, 1832 – August 1, 1887) was the first African American person to serve in the United States House of Representatives and the second black U.S. Congressman. Rainey was born in Georgetown, South Carolina. His parents were both slaves, but his father, Edward, had a successful business as a barber, enabling him to purchase his family’s freedom shortly after Joseph Rainey’s birth. As an adult, Rainey followed his father by becoming a barber. In 1861, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, Rainey was drafted by the Confederate government to work on fortifications in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as to work as a laborer on blockade-runner ships. In 1862, he and his wife were able to escape to the West Indies. They settled in St. Georges, Bermuda, where Rainey continued to work as a barber for the duration of the war. In 1866, following the war’s end, Rainey returned to South Carolina. He quickly involved himself in politics, joining the executive committee of the state Republican Party. In 1868, he was a delegate to the convention which wrote the state’s new constitution. In 1870, Rainey was elected to the State Senate of South Carolina. Later that year, he was elected to fill a vacancy in the Forty-first Congress of the United States as a Republican. This vacancy had been created when the previous incumbent, B. Franklin Whittemore, was censured by the House for corruption and subsequently re-elected, after which the House refused to seat him. Rainey was seated December 12, 1870 and was re-elected to Congress four times; he served until March 3, 1879, which made him the longest-serving black Congressmen prior to William L. Dawson in the 1950s. During his term in Congress, Rainey focused on supporting legislation to protect the civil rights of Southern blacks. This pursuit eventually proved unsuccessful, with the end of Reconstruction effectively meaning that the black electorate lost all political power. In 1876, Rainey won re-election against Democratic candidate John Smythe Richardson; Richardson, however challenged the result as invalid on the grounds of intimidation by federal soldiers and black militias. Two years later, as the opponents of Reconstruction solidified their control over South Carolina politics, Rainey was defeated in a second contest with Richardson. After leaving Congress, Joseph Rainey was appointed internal-revenue agent of South Carolina. He held this position for two years, after which he began a career in private commerce. Rainey retired in 1886 and died the following year in Georgetown, the city in which he was born

Response:

Shirley Chisholm is one of my favorite politicians and the first black US Congresswoman. She was truly unbought and unbossed. Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator and author. She was a Congresswoman representing New York’s 12th District from 1969-1983. In 1968, she became the first African-American woman elected to Congress. In 1972, she became the first African-American and the first woman to make a serious bid to be President of the United States. Born in Brooklyn, New York as Shirley St. Hill, she spent part of her childhood in Barbados with her grandmother, benefiting from the British school system. She later attended Brooklyn College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. While working as a teacher, Chisholm earned a Master’s degree in elementary education from Columbia University. From 1953-1959, she was director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center, and from 1959-1964 was an educational consultant for the Division of Day Care. In 1964, Chisholm ran and was elected to the New York State Legislature. She then ran as the Democratic candidate for New York’s 12th District congressional seat and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1968. She defeated Republican candidate James Farmer, to become the first African-American woman elected to Congress. As a freshman, Chisholm was assigned to the House Forestry Committee. Given her district, she felt the placement was a waste of time and shocked many by demanding reassignment. She was placed on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Soon after, she voted for Hale Boggs as Majority Leader over John Conyers, even though Boggs was white. As a reward for her support, Boggs assigned her to the much-prized Education and Labor Committee; she was the third-highest ranking member when she retired. Chisholm joined the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 as one of its founding members. In 1972, Chisholm made a bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, and received 152 delegate votes, but ultimately lost the nomination to South Dakota Senator George McGovern. Chisholm’s base of support was ethnically diverse and included the National Organization for Women. Among the volunteers who were inspired by her campaign was Barbara Lee, who would go on to become a congresswoman some 25 years later. Chisholm said she ran for the office "in spite of hopeless odds," "to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo." Chisholm created controversy when she visited rival and ideological opposite George Wallace in the hospital soon after his shooting during that campaign. Several years later, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a minimum wage, Wallace got her the votes of enough southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House. Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm would work to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She was a vocal opponent of the draft and supported spending increases for education, healthcare and other social services, and reductions in military spending. She announced her retirement from Congress in 1982, and was replaced by a fellow Democrat in 1983.

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