Congressman Joseph Rainey, born into slavery, was the first Black representative from South Carolina and the first African American to serve in the...
Joseph Hayne Rainey
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44th Congress
Josiah Thomas Walls
Congressman Josiah Walls was the first Black representative to the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida. He served from 1871 to 1873 and from...
John Roy Lynch
Congressman John Lynch was the first Black American member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi and the youngest member of the 43rd...
Blanche Kelso Bruce
Senator Blanche Bruce escaped slavery at the outset of the Civil War and served as a Mississippi Senator from 1875 to 1881 (44th-46th Congresses)....
John Adams Hyman
Congressman John Hyman, enslaved until 1865, was the first Black American to represent North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving...
Robert Smalls
Congressman Robert Smalls represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1875 to 1879, 1882 to 1883, and from 1884 to 1887...
Charles Edmund Nash
A former sergeant for the Union Army, Congressman Charles Nash was the first Black American to represent Louisiana in the U.S. House of...
Jeremiah Haralson
Congressman Jeremiah Haralson, enslaved until 1865, was one of three Black Americans from Alabama who served in the U.S. House of Representatives...