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Black Americans in Congress: An Introduction

The Symbolic Generation, 1870–1887

On February 27, 1869, John Willis Menard of Louisiana became the first African American to address the U.S. House while it was in session, defending his seat in a contested election. In November 1868, Menard appeared to have won a special election to succeed the late Representative James Mann—a victory that would have made him the first African American to serve in Congress. But his opponent, Caleb Hunt, challenged Menard’s right to be seated. The House deemed neither candidate qualified, leaving the seat vacant for the remainder of the final days of the 40th Congress (1867–1869).On February 27, 1869, John Willis Menard of Louisiana became the first African American to address the U.S. House while it was in session, defending his seat in a contested election. In November 1868, Menard appeared to have won a special election to succeed the late Representative James Mann—a victory that would have made him the first African American to serve in Congress. But his opponent, Caleb Hunt, challenged Menard’s right to be seated. The House deemed neither candidate qualified, leaving the seat vacant for the remainder of the final days of the 40th Congress (1867–1869).Image courtesy of Library of Congress

This group of 17 black Representatives symbolized the triumph of the Union and the determination of Radical Republicans to enact reforms that temporarily reshaped the political landscape in the South during Reconstruction. These pioneers were all Republicans elected from southern states. Though their educational, professional, and social backgrounds were diverse, they were all indelibly shaped by the institution of slavery. Eight were enslaved, and their experience under slavery disrupted their early lives. Others, as members of strictly circumscribed southern mulatto, or mixed-race, communities and free black classes, were relatively well-to-do. However, mulatto heritage was a precarious political inheritance; mixed-race Members of Congress were shunned by southern whites and were never fully trusted by freedmen, who often doubted they had blacks’ interests at heart.

Though these black Members adopted various legislative strategies, each sought to improve the lives of their African-American constituents. Their agendas invariably included three primary goals: providing education, enforcing political rights, and extending opportunities to enable economic independence. “Place all citizens upon one broad platform…,” declared Richard Cain of South Carolina (1877–1879) on the House Floor. “All we ask of this country is to put no barriers between us, to lay no stumbling blocks in our way; to give us freedom to accomplish our destiny.”10

Despite their distinguished service and their symbolic value for African-American political aspirations, these black Members produced few substantive legislative results. They never accounted for more than 2 percent of the total congressional membership. Their exclusion from the internal power structure of the institution cut them off from influential committee assignments and at times prevented them even from speaking on the House Floor, leaving them little room to maneuver. Most of the key civil rights bills and constitutional amendments were enacted before a single African American served in Congress. The Ku Klux Klan Acts and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which embodied black legislative interests, depended solely on the impermanent support of the shifting but uniformly white House leadership. Black Members of Congress often were relegated to the sidelines and to offering testimonials about the malfeasance of racially conservative southerners against freedmen.

After Reconstruction formally ended in 1877, ex-Confederates and their Democratic allies wrested power from Republican-controlled state governments and, through law and custom, gradually built a segregated society during the next several decades, effectively eliminating Black Americans from public office and ending their political participation. As the next group of African-American Members discovered, the federal government reacted impassively to blacks’ disfranchisement by the states.

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Footnotes

  1. Congressional Record, House, 43rd Cong., 1st sess. (3 February 1875): 957.