African Americans in the United States Congress
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From the first United States Congress in 1789 through the 116th Congress in 2020, 162 African Americans served in Congress.[1] Meanwhile, the total number of all individuals who have served in Congress over that period is 12,348.[2] Between 1789 and 2020, 152 have served in the House of Representatives, 9 have served in the Senate, and 1 has served in both chambers. Voting members have totaled 156, with 6 serving as delegates. Party membership has been 131 Democrats and 31 Republicans. While 13 members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 during the 92nd Congress, in the 116th Congress (2019-2020), 56 served, with 54 Democrats and 2 Republicans (total seats are 535, plus 6 delegates).[1]
By the time of the first edition of the House sponsored book, Black Americans in Congress, in the
The first African Americans to serve in the Congress were Republicans elected during the
By the
As Republicans accommodated the end of Reconstruction becoming more ambiguous on civil rights and with the rise of the Republican lily-white movement, African Americans began shifting away from the Republican Party.[8] During two waves of massive migration within the United States in the first half of the 20th century, more than six million African Americans moved from the South to Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western industrial cities, with five million migrating from 1940 to 1970. Some were elected to federal political office from these new locations, and most were elected as Democrats. During the Great Depression, many black voters switched allegiances from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, in support of the New Deal economic, social network and work policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. This trend continued through the 1960s civil rights legislation, when voting rights returned to the South, to present.
History of black representation
Reconstruction and Redemption
The right of black people to vote and to serve in the
The first black person to address Congress was Henry Highland Garnet, in 1865, on occasion of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.[9]
In 1866, Congress passed the
As a result of these measures, black people acquired the right to vote across the Southern states. In several states (notably
Black people were a majority of the population in many
All of these
From 1868, Southern elections were accompanied by increasing violence, especially in Louisiana, Mississippi and the Carolinas, in an effort by Democrats to suppress black voting and regain power. In the mid-1870s,
After the disputed Presidential election of 1876 between Democratic Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New York, and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, governor of Ohio, a national agreement between Democratic and Republican factions was negotiated, resulting in the Compromise of 1877. Under the compromise, Democrats conceded the election to Hayes and promised to acknowledge the political rights of black people; Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South and promised to appropriate a portion of federal monies toward Southern projects.
Disenfranchisement
With the Southern states "
By the 1880s, legislators increased restrictions on black voters through voter registration and election rules. In 1888
Starting with the
Southern state and local legislatures also passed
The last black congressman elected from the South in the 19th century was George Henry White of North Carolina, elected in 1896 and re-elected in 1898. His term expired in 1901, the same year that William McKinley, who was the last president to have fought in the Civil War, died. No black people served in Congress for the next 28 years, and none represented any Southern state for the next 72 years.
The modern era
From 1910 to 1940, the Great Migration of black people from the rural South to Northern cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland began to produce black-majority Congressional districts in the North. In the North, black people could exercise their right to vote. In the two waves of the Great Migration through 1970, more than six and a half million black people moved north and west and became highly urbanized.
In 1928,
The election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 led to a shift of black voting loyalties from Republican to Democrat, as Roosevelt's New Deal programs offered economic relief to people suffering from the Great Depression. From 1940 to 1970, nearly five million black Americans moved north and also west, especially to California, in the second wave of the Great Migration. By the mid-1960s, an overwhelming majority of black voters were Democrats, and most were voting in states outside the former Confederacy.
It was not until after passage by Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the result of years of effort on the part of African Americans and allies in the Civil Rights Movement, that black people within the Southern states recovered their ability to exercise their rights to vote and to live with full civil rights. While legal segregation ended, accomplishing voter registration and redistricting to implement the sense of the law took more time.
On January 3, 1969, Shirley Chisholm was sworn as the nation's first African-American congresswoman. Two years later, she became one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Until 1992, most black House members were elected from inner-city districts in the North and West:
Both parties have used gerrymandering to gain political advantage by drawing districts to favor their own party. Some districts were created to link widely separated black communities.[when?] As a result, several black Democratic members of the House were elected from new districts in Alabama, Florida, rural Georgia, rural Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia for the first time since Reconstruction. Additional black-majority districts were also created in this way in California, Maryland and Texas, thus increasing the number of black-majority districts.[citation needed]
The creation of black-majority districts[when?] was a process supported by both parties. The Democrats saw it as a means of providing social justice, as well as connecting easily to black voters who had been voting Democratic for decades. The Republicans believed they gained by the change, as many of the Democratic voters were moved out of historically Republican-majority districts.[citation needed] By 2000, other demographic and cultural changes resulted in the Republican Party holding a majority of white-majority House districts.[citation needed]
Since the 1940s, when decades of the Great Migration resulted in millions of African Americans having migrated from the South, no state has had a majority of African-American residents. Nine African Americans have served in the Senate since the 1940s:
List of African Americans in the United States Congress
United States Senate
United States House of Representatives
See also
- African-American officeholders in the United States, 1789–1866
- Black suffrage in the United States
- Civil rights movement (1865–1896)
- Congressional Black Caucus
- List of African-American United States Cabinet members
- List of African-American U.S. state firsts
- List of first African-American mayors
- Negro Republican Party
- Politics of the United States
Notes
- ^ a b Brudnick, Ida A.; Manning, Jennifer E. (January 22, 2020). African American Members of the U.S. Congress: 1870-2019 (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service. pp. 1, 5.
- ^ "Total Members of the House & State Representation - US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives". history.house.gov. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
- ^ "The Historiography of Black Americans in Congress | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives". history.house.gov. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
- Constitution of United States(1865)
- Constitution of United States(1865)
- ^ "x-index :: Reconstruction :: Politics :: Lest We Forget". lestweforget.hamptonu.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
- ^ "Southern Violence During Reconstruction | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
- ^ "Party Realignment - US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives". history.house.gov. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
- ^ Garnet, Henry Highland (1865). A memorial discourse; by Henry Highland Garnet, delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives, Washington City, D.C. on Sabbath, February 12, 1865. With an introduction, by James McCune Smith, M.D. Philadelphia: Joseph Wilson. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
- ISBN 9780199979363.
- ^ "First African American Senator". U.S. Senate. Retrieved July 25, 2012.
- ^ "Joseph Hayne Rainey" Archived 2012-06-25 at the Wayback Machine, Black Americans in Congress, Office of the Clerk, US Congress, accessed 30 March 2011
- ^ "Black Americans in Congress – John Mercer Langston". U.S. House of Representatives. Archived from the original on July 2, 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
References
- Bailey, Richard. Black Officeholders During the Reconstruction of Alabama, 1867–1878. New South Books, 2006.
- ISBN 0-585-09809-3
- Clay, William L. Just Permanent Interests Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1991. Amistad Press, 1992. ISBN 1-56743-000-7
- Dray, Philip. Capitol Men the Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen. Houghton Mifflin Co, 2008. ISBN 978-0-618-56370-8
- ISBN 0-8071-2082-0.
- Freedman, Eric. African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History. CQ Press, 2007. ISBN 0-87289-385-5
- Gill, LaVerne McCain. African American Women in Congress Forming and Transforming History. Rutgers University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8135-2353-2
- Hahn, Steven. A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South From Slavery to the Great Migration. 2003. ISBN 0-674-01169-4
- Haskins, James. Distinguished African American Political and Governmental Leaders. Phoenix, Arizona: Oryx Press, 1999. ISBN 1-57356-126-6
- Middleton, Stephen. Black Congressmen During Reconstruction : A Documentary Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002. ISBN 0-313-06512-8
- Rabinowitz, Howard N. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era. University of Illinois Press, 1982. ISBN 0-252-00929-0
- Walton, Hanes Jr.; Puckett, Sherman C.; ISBN 9780872895089.
External links
- African American Members of the United States Congress: 1870-2012 A 66-page history produced by the Congressional Research Service.
- Black Americans in Congress, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives
- Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007 C-SPAN video with Matt Wasniewski as the presenter. He discusses the history of African Americans in Congress since 1870 (164 minute in length).