this was indeed a triumph. I introduced a bill establishing a college course as a part of our curriculum at Prairie View Normal which passed 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 passed but was declared unconstitutional 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.
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.
30 Contested, not seated.
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.176
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 Lassiter, 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 Washington, 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. Cassells and I.F. Norris, who is still living in North Dakota. Cassells 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 class and up to the standard of the whites who were sent to the legislature in those days.
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.
Nashville city government during the days of reconstruction had among its membership, perhaps, one-third colored members. These men were not of the same calibre as the colored members of the legislature. They were picked up in the different wards by their friends. They were chosen for their popularity rather than for fitness for the work before them.
Immediately following the reconstruction days, Josiah T. Settle was elected Assistant Attorney General for Shelby county under General Patterson who afterwards served as Governor of the State of Tennessee. Mr. Settle had previously been a member of the Mississippi Legislature.
In Knoxville men have served in the legislature of the city government.
When they changed the form of government in Nashville, there was a colored man a member of the Board of Aldermen. Two colored men were elected to the council. As a result, two fire companies were given to colored men. Mr. Charles Gowdey and Mr. J.C. Napier were the colored members of the council. The first two brick school houses were erected for colored children during their term. They were the Pearl High School and the Meigs School. At that time the people of Nashville, the Democrats especially, showed a very liberal spirit to the colored people and divided the positions with them. Shorty after this with a more liberal spirit, they erected the third brick school house in the city of Nashville, The Napier School.
After things went out of the hands of the Republicans in Tennessee, Capt. Sumner went down into Mississippi, entered politics and was elected Sheriff of Holmes county. He became quite wealthy. His family was of high standing. Owned property in Nashville and the descendants still own it.
Settle and Cassells were free men. Keeble was owned by a very distinguished Tennessee family named Keeble.
In Tennessee before the war there were schools for Negroes. There were no laws against schools for free colored people until the agitation that brought on the war.
At Nashville, Franklin college graduated three colored men; that is the school gave them graduation papers. They were prepared for the ministry in the Christian church (Disciples). These men were Samuel Lowery, Daniel Watkins and James T. Rapier. Lowery, Rapier and Watkins were all free men. Rapier served a term or two from Florence, Ala., in Congress during the Reconstruction Period. He was a man of some wealth, was very active and traveled a good deal. Lowery's father was also a minister, before him, in the Christian Church. He had a farm as well as city property. Franklin College was a Campbellite Institution or what is now known as the Christian Church Institution.
When the agitation came about preceding the Civil War they closed all of the
There were no colored members of the Tennessee Senate.
1868, 1870, see North Carolina list, Pasquotank County.
