Black Congressmen during Reconstruction: A Documentary Sourcebook

Black Congressmen during Reconstruction: A Documentary Sourcebook. Edited by Stephen Middleton. Foreword by John David Smith. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002. xx, 444 pp. $94.95. ISBN 0-313-32281-3.

In Black Congressmen during Reconstruction, Stephen Middleton makes a significant contribution to Reconstruction historiography by examining the careers of twenty-two lawmakers who represented eight southern states in Congress from 1868 to 1901. Using numerous secondary sources and the speeches of most of these men, Middleton combines the fervor of W. E. B. Du Bois with the scholarship of Eric Foner.

To show that black congressmen were not monolithic, Middleton examines and finds diversity in their backgrounds, paths to prominence, positions on public policy, and post-legislative careers. For example, these men were not exclusively former slaves. Of the twenty-two, Middleton argues that nine were free-born: Richard Harvey Cain, Robert Brown Elliott, John Mercer Langston, Thomas Ezekiel Miller, Charles Edmund Nash, James Edward O'Hara, Alonzo Jacob Ransier, James Thomas Rapier, and Hiram Rhodes Revels. Several lawmakers had military experience before assuming public office: Robert Carlos De Large and Robert Smalls served with the Confederate Navy; Josiah Thomas Walls in the Confederate Army; Elliot in the British Royal Navy; John Roy Lynch in the Union Navy; and Nash in the Union Army. Both Langston and Hiram Rhodes Revels were recruiters for the Union Army.

Nor were these men political novices upon their arrival in Washington. Alter receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from Oberlin College in the late 184Os, Langston was a city clerk, councilman, and board of education member in Ohio-all before the beginning of the Civil War. Benjamin Sterling Turner served as Dallas County's tax collector and a Selma councilman, and Rapier was a delegate to the 1865 constitutional convention in Nashville. John Adams Hyman and O'Hara attended the constitutional convention in Raleigh in 1868, the same year Ransier and Smalls served in South Carolina's convention. Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida each sent only one African American to Congress; of these, Walls of Florida was the only one elected as a delegate to a constitutional convention in 1868.

These officeholders also championed various causes. Blanche Kelso Bruce, Cain, De Large, Langston, Jefferson Franklin Long, Lynch, O'Hara, Nash, Rapier, Revels, Turner, Walls, and George Henry White included civil rights among the causes they advanced. Outside of civil rights, Turner sought reparations for former slaves; O'Hara wanted gender equity in teachers' salaries and introduced legislation to abolish segregated seating in public transportation across state lines. Other officeholders came to the defense of depositors who lost money in the failed Freedmen's Bank.

Even after assuming office, De Large, Hyman, Haralson, Langston, Miller, Rapier, Smalls, and Walls saw their elections challenged. Other times, black opposition paved the way for a white candidate. Frederick Bromberg represented Mobile after defeating Turner and Phillip Joseph, who divided the black vote. Later, Haralson and Rapier split the black vote and propelled Charles Shelley to victory. O'Hara and Israel B. Abbott did much the same in paving the way for Furnifold M. Simmons.

The study closes by focusing on the post-legislative careers of these men. While Cain, Langsten, Miller, and Revels became college presidents, others, like Turner, lived their final years far from the limelight. In between stood the likes of Lynch, who was a lawyer and photographer; George Washington Murray, who was an inventor and author of two books; and Joseph Hayne Rainey and White, who engaged in banking enterprises.

Middleton has rescued black officeholders from the grasp of the Dunning School and near obscurity. His oversights fail to mar the real value of the book. Mistakenly saying that Lynch was born in 1873 does not detract from the value of the book, nor does his writing that Rapier wanted blacks to migrate to the North when, in fact, Rapier, like Rainey, wanted blacks to migrate to the West and even invested in land there himself. Serious readers of southern history will find a place for Middleton's well-written book in their libraries.

RICHARD BAILEY

Montgomery, Alabama

Copyright University of Alabama Press Jul 2004
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