Isaiah Montgomery

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Isaiah Thornton Montgomery

Isaiah Thornton Montgomery (May 21, 1847 – March 5, 1924) was founder of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all-black community. A Republican, he was a delegate to the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention and served as mayor of Mound Bayou.

He participated in the 1890 Mississippi constitutional convention as a delegate from Bolivar County and voted for the adoption of a state constitution that effectively disfranchised black voters for decades, using poll taxes and literacy tests to raise barriers to voter registration.[1][2] Montgomery promoted an accommodationist position for African Americans. The I. T. Montgomery House in Mound Bayou is a National Landmark.

He has been described as "Mississippi's Booker T. Washington".[3]

Early life and education

Born into

Davis Bend plantation. Davis wanted to establish a more positive working environment for slaves and encouraged education.[4]

Following the end of the

white supremacists
.

Montgomery married Martha Robb; their daughter

Mary Cordelia Montgomery Booze was a political organizer.[5]

Career

After his father's death in 1877, Isaiah Montgomery worked to realize his father's dream. With his cousin

Bolivar County
was the largest in area in the Delta. As farmers cleared land, they started cultivating cotton.

Montgomery worked to gain freedmen protection of the law, and to keep their work and lives separate from supervision by whites.

Montgomery attended Mississippi's 1890 constitutional convention as its only black or Republican delegate. Convened in Jackson in August, the convention drafted a new constitution which was designed to secure white domination of state politics, including the adoption of an "understanding clause" which required any prospective voter to be able to read and interpret any section of the state constitution.[6] With little ability to challenge it, Montgomery accepted the clause, arguing that while it was "apparently one of unfriendliness" to blacks it was in the public interest to prevent illiterates from voting.[7]

In what the Washington Post termed "A Notable Address Delivered by the Colored Statesman,"

Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. He strongly condemned Montgomery's stance regarding suffrage in Mississippi. Douglass had spoken of Montgomery numerous times before and on the occasion cited his position as an act of "treason, to the cause of the colored people, not only of his own state, but of the United States," referring to the effect Montgomery's act would have in other states. He also lamented having heard in Montgomery "a groan of bitter anguish born of oppression and despair" and a voice of a "soul from which all hope had vanished."[8][9]

Legacy

I. T. Montgomery Elementary School of the

Mound Bayou School District) is named after Montgomery.[10]

References

  1. ^ Wormser, Richard (October 18, 2002). "Isiah Washington". Jim Crow Stories: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Educational Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on October 18, 2002. Retrieved October 18, 2002.
  2. Public Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original
    on April 5, 2003. Retrieved April 5, 2003.
  3. ^ McMillen, Neil R. (February 2007). "Isaiah T. Montgomery, 1847–1924 (Part II)". Mississippi Historical Society: Mississippi History Now. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
  4. ^ Hermann 1981, p. 316.
  5. Alexander Street Press. Retrieved March 17, 2024 – via Alexander Street
    .
  6. ^ Krane & Shaffer 1992, pp. 48–49.
  7. ^ Krane & Shaffer 1992, p. 49.
  8. ^ "DOUGLASS TO HIS RACE". pqasb.pqarchiver.com. Oct 22, 1890. Archived from the original on 21 March 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  9. ^ Douglass, Frederick (October 21, 1890). The race problem : great speech of Frederick Douglass, delivered before the Bethel Literary and Historical Association, in the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, Washington, D.C., October 21, 1890.THE RACE PROBLEM. Washington, DC: JOHN H. WILLS School and College Books. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  10. ^ Davis Betz, Kelsey (2018-05-19). "Mound Bayou's history a 'magical kingdom' residents fight to preserve". Mississippi Today. Retrieved 2021-05-12.

Works cited

External links
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