The Journal of Negro History
Chapter 246 : Pains were taken to keep the plans from both the native whites and the so-called carpe

Pains were taken to keep the plans from both the native whites and the so-called carpet baggers from the North. That both Mr. Sumner and Mr.

Stevens advised the committee to tender the leaders.h.i.+p to native whites of the former master cla.s.s of conservative views: but this plan was frustrated because they were not able to secure the consent of desired representatives of the former master cla.s.s to a.s.sume the proffered leaders.h.i.+p.

(Signed) KELLY MILLER (Signed) WHITEFIELD MCKINLAY

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., December 14, 1917.

Subscribed to and sworn before me, SAMUEL E. LACY a Notary Public in and for the District of Columbia, this Fourteenth (14th) Day of December 1917.

(Signed) SAMUEL E. LACY, _Notary Public, D. C._

SOME NEGRO MEMBERS OF RECONSTRUCTION LEGISLATURES

_Texas_

J. H. Stewart who now lives in Austin.

Edward Patton, San Jacinto County, now living in Was.h.i.+ngton is in Government service.

Nathan H. Haller, Brazoria County. House, 1892-94. Reelected and counted out. Contested his seat and won.

R. L. Smith, Colorado County, 1895-99, now living in Waco. Is president of the Farmers Bank and head of the Farmers Improvement a.s.sociation. For sketch of, see _Negro Year Book_, p. 322. For his work in the Legislature, see attached letter.

Elias May, Brazos County, in the early days of Reconstruction.

R. J. Moore, Was.h.i.+ngton County, representative.

---- Gaines, senator, Lee County.

Copy.

COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WORK IN AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS WACO, TEXAS, March 26, 1918.

PROF. MONROE N. WORK, Tuskegee Inst. Ala.

_Dear Mr. Work_:

I was elected in Nov. 1894 as representative for Colorado county and was re-elected in 1896.

My majority in 1894 was 168 and in 1896 at the next election it was 450 as I recollect it.

I was appointed on the committee on education and on privilege and election and on agriculture.

I introduced a bill restoring colored trustees which finally pa.s.sed.

I fought a bill establis.h.i.+ng separate waiting rooms for the races at R. R. Station and killed it for four years.

I introduced a resolution inviting manufacturing cotton plants to come to Texas. I introduced a resolution granting the use of the Hall of the House of Representatives to the colored citizens of Austin to hold their memorial services for Fred Douglas. When one understands the race feeling in the South this was indeed a triumph. I introduced a bill establis.h.i.+ng a college course as a part of our curriculum at Prairie View Normal which pa.s.sed carrying with it a grant of fifty thousand acres of land.

I worked hard to help carry a bill through making any peace officer automatically lose his office whenever a lynching took place in his county. This bill pa.s.sed but was declared unconst.i.tutional by the supreme court. I was appointed by the speaker as a member of the visiting board for Prairie View State Normal. As a member of the committee on privileges and Election I single handed fought for a colored man elected from Brazoria county, N. H. Haller by name who had the nerve to contest the seat of a white man to whom the certificate of election had been awarded. After a long and bitter fight in which three times I carried in and presented a minority report we won and Haller was seated. This isn't the only case of its kind that I know of in this state.

Haller of course had able legal talent to take care of his case.

I voted for the purchase of the battle field of San Jacinto which is in Harris country about twenty miles below Houston. It was on this battlefield that Texas won her independence from Mexico in 1836. It is now a beautiful state park. For this action I was publicly thanked by the Daughters of the Republic.

Respectfully (Signed) R. L. SMITH.

The legislatures which I served in were the 23d and 24th.

Charles A. Culberson, now U. S. senator was governor and our relations were very cordial.

In 1902 I was tendered and accepted a position in the U. S. Marshal's office for the Eastern Dist. of Texas by Pres. Roosevelt. Held same until 1909. This was the most honorable and best paid federal position ever held by a Negro in Texas except that held by Hon. N. W. Cuney who was collector of the Post of Galveston. In 1915 I took charge of the Extension Service work for Negroes in Texas which I now hold.

SOME NEGRO MEMBERS OF THE TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE DURING RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD AND AFTER[29]

By Honorable J. C. Napier, of Nashville, Tenn., register of United States Treasury, May, 1917

Year Name County

1871-73 Sampson W. Keeble Davidson 1877-79 Thos. A. Sykes? Davidson 1879-81 S.A. McElwee? Haywood 1881-83 T. Frank Ca.s.sells Shelby J.F. Norris Shelby Thos. A. Sykes? Davidson S.A. McElwee? Haywood 1883-85 J.W. Boyd Weakley S.A. McElwee Haywood D.F. Rivers Fayette 1885-87 G.E. Evans Shelby W.A. Fields Shelby W.C. Hodge Shelby S.A. McElwee Haywood D.F. Rivers[30] Fayette 1887-89 1889-91 ---- Goodman Fayette 1891-93 1893-95 1895-97 J. M. H. Graham Montgomery

Davidson county, Tennessee, sent two colored men to the Legislature.

The first colored member of the Legislature was Sampson W. Keeble from 71-73. From 77-79 the colored member was Thomas A. Sykes. Both of these were representatives. Tennessee never had any colored senators.

Sampson W. Keeble was a native of Tennessee. Thomas A. Sykes was a native of North Carolina and had been a member of the North Carolina legislature.[31]

Captain James H. Sumner, of Davidson County, was elected a door-keeper of the House of Representatives for 1867-69. He was afterwards appointed captain of a Militia Company which rendered the State valuable service in putting down the Ku-Klux. Later by act of the Legislature a committee was authorized for Nashville consisting of three persons to audit claims against the State for destruction of property by soldiers of the Confederates and Federal armies during the war. Governor Brownlow appointed on this commission James H. Sumner, a white man named La.s.siter, and J.C. Napier. They examined claims amounting to millions of dollars, some of which were afterwards paid and others rejected. There were other colored men on such commissions in other parts of the state whose names I do not now recall.

Haywood county first sent Samuel A. McElwee. He served from 79-83. The same county afterwards sent Rev. D.F. Rivers who is now pastor of the Berean Baptist Church in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Rev. Rivers defeated the father of a very popular white girl and she met him in the street and spat in his face. McElwee made a very active member and was highly respected by all. He was a graduate of Fisk University and the law department of Walden University.

Weakley County sent John W. Boyd who served two or three terms in the legislature. He ran for the senate but was defeated.

Perhaps there was one from Hamilton county or Knox county.

Shelby county sent quite a delegation of colored men from time to time. Among them were T.F. Ca.s.sells and I.F. Norris, who is still living in North Dakota. Ca.s.sells was a lawyer, educated at Oberlin.

Mr. Norris was a successful business man of Memphis, Mr. Keeble was a barber in Nashville.

Mr. Sykes was Internal Revenue Collector in Nashville and came there with high revenue officials from North Carolina. He entered politics and was quite influential and finally died at Nashville.

Keeble was of a family highly respected and of very high standing in Nashville. The men from Memphis and Haywood counties were more highly educated than the others. They were free men of high cla.s.s and up to the standard of the whites who were sent to the legislature in those days.

COLORED MEN IN OTHER POSITIONS

At one time the county government of Davidson County was run by three Commissioners; one of these commissioners was a colored man, named Randall Brown of limited education, but large experience and a large amount of good common sense. He was very influential and highly thought of by white and colored people.