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Presents brief biographies of prominent African American members of the Illinois General Assembly, from 1877 to 2005.
Illinois State Historical Society Superior Achievement Award, 2013 As the first African American elected to the Illinois General Assembly, John W. E. Thomas was the recognized leader of the state’s African American community for nearly twenty years and laid the groundwork for the success of future Black leaders in Chicago politics. Despite his key role in the passage of Illinois’ first civil rights act and his commitment to improving his community against steep personal and political barriers, Thomas’s life and career have been long forgotten by historians and the public alike. This fascinating full-length biography—the first to address the full influence of Thomas or any Black politician from Illinois during the Reconstruction Era—is also a pioneering effort to explain the dynamics of African American politics and divisions within the Black community in post–Civil War Chicago. In From Slave to State Legislator, David A. Joens traces Thomas’s trajectory from a slave owned by a doctor’s family in Alabama to a prominent attorney believed to be the wealthiest African American man in Chicago at the time of his death in 1899. Providing one of the few comprehensive looks at African Americans in Chicago during this period, Joens reveals how Thomas’s career represents both the opportunities available to African Americans in the postwar period and the limits still placed on them. When Thomas moved to Chicago in 1869, he started a grocery store, invested in real estate, and founded the first private school for African Americans before becoming involved in politics. From Slave to State Legislator provides detailed coverage of Thomas’s three terms in the legislature during the 1870s and 1880s, his multiple failures to be nominated for reelection, and his loyalty to the Republican Party at great political cost, calling attention to the political differences within a Black community often considered small and homogenous. Even after achieving his legislative legacy—the passage of the first state civil rights law—Thomas was plagued by patronage issues and an increasingly bitter split with the African American community frustrated with slow progress toward true equality. Drawing on newspapers and an array of government documents, Joens provides the most thorough review to date of the first civil rights legislation and the two controversial “colored conventions” chaired by Thomas. Joens cements Thomas’s legacy as a committed and conscientious lawmaker amid political and personal struggles. In revealing the complicated rivalries and competing ambitions that shaped Black northern politics during the Reconstruction Era, Joens shows the long-term impact of Thomas’s friendship with other burgeoning African American political stars and his work to get more black representatives elected. The volume is enhanced by short biographies of other key Chicago African American politicians of the era.
John W.E. Thomas (1847-1899) was elected as Illinois' first African American state legislator in 1877 and served three terms in the Illinois General Assembly. This dissertation serves as the first full length biography of Thomas and seeks to discuss African American politics and society in post Civil War Chicago.
This pioneering work brings together for the first time in a single reference work all of the extant, fugitive, and recently discovered registration data on African American voters from Colonial America to the present. It features election returns for African American presidential, senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial candidates over time. Rich, insightful narrative explains the data and traces the history of the laws dealing with the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of African Americans. Topics covered include: - The contributions of statistical pioneers including Monroe Work, W.E.B. DuBois and Ralph Bunche - African American organizations, like the NAACP and National Equal Rights League (NERL) - Pioneering African American officeholders, including the few before the Civil War - Four influxes of African American voters: Reconstruction (Southern African American men), the Fifteenth Amendment (African American men across the country), the Nineteenth Amendment (African American female voters in 1920 election), and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - The historical development of disenfranchisement in the South and the statistical impact of the tools of disenfranchisement: literacy clauses, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses. The African-American Electorate features more than 300 tables, 150 figures, and 50 maps, many of which have been created exclusively for this work using demographic, voter registration, election return, and racial precinct data that have never been collected and assembled for the public. An appendix includes popular and electoral voting data for African-American presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial candidates, and a comprehensive bibliography indicates major topic areas and eras concerning the African-American electorate. The African American Electorate offers students and researchers the opportunity, for the first time, to explore the relationship between voters and political candidates, identify critical variables, and situate African Americans' voting behavior and political phenomena in the context of America's political history.
The story of African Americans in Kentucky is as diverse and vibrant as the state's general history. The work of more than 150 writers, The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia is an essential guide to the black experience in the Commonwealth. The encyclopedia includes biographical sketches of politicians and community leaders as well as pioneers in art, science, and industry. Kentucky's impact on the national scene is registered in an array of notable figures, such as writers William Wells Brown and bell hooks, reformers Bessie Lucas Allen and Shelby Lanier Jr., sports icons Muhammad Ali and Isaac Murphy, civil rights leaders Whitney Young Jr. and Georgia Powers, and entertainers Ernest Hogan, Helen Humes, and the Nappy Roots. Featuring entries on the individuals, events, places, organizations, movements, and institutions that have shaped the state's history since its origins, the volume also includes topical essays on the civil rights movement, Eastern Kentucky coalfields, business, education, and women. For researchers, students, and all who cherish local history, The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia is an indispensable reference that highlights the diversity of the state's culture and history.
Scholars studying the causes and consequences of political representation, particularly in terms of gender and race, often turn to a concept called descriptive representation. Descriptive representation tells us the degree to which elected officials resemble their constituents, and whether such a resemblance has a bearing on the way they legislate. In other words, do people vote for candidates of their same racial/ethnic background or gender? If they do, does this affect the type of policies an elected official pursues? Further, if citizens see people who look like them in office, does it have an effect on their political attitudes and participation? In this book, Christopher J. Clark argues that descriptive representation is a more multi-faceted phenomenon than previously shown, particularly when observed at the state level. He contends that black political involvement, political attitudes, and public opinion are contingent on more than being represented by a single black elected official. Rather, they hinge on the proportion of African Americans making up a state legislature--what Clark terms "black seat share"--as well as the degree to which that proportion reflects the demographic makeup of the state. As well, Clark pinpoints the critical mass of African American legislators necessary to initiate the creation of black caucuses, an important institution for minority representation. Clark bases his study on an examination of black representation in state legislatures between 1966 and 2010, looking particularly at black political opinion and involvement in the development of welfare and education policy.
Born into slavery in 1862, Ida B. Wells went on to become an influential reformer and leader in the African American community. A Southern black woman living in a time when little social power was available to people of her race or gender, Ida B. Wells made an extraordinary impact on American society through her journalism and activism. Best-known for her anti-lynching crusade, which publicly exposed the extralegal killings of African Americans, Wells was also an outspoken advocate for social justice in issues including women's suffrage, education, housing, the legal system, and poor relief. In this concise biography, Kristina DuRocher introduces students to Wells's life and the historical issues of race, gender, and social reform in the late 19th- and early 20th-century U.S. Supplemented by primary documents including letters, speeches, and newspaper articles by and about Wells, and supported by a robust companion website, this book enables students to understand this fascinating figure and a contested period in American history.
National Bestseller In this nuanced and complex portrait of Barack Obama, Pulitzer Prize-winner David Remnick offers a thorough, intricate, and riveting account of the unique experiences that shaped our nation’s first African American president. Through extensive on-the-record interviews with friends and teachers, mentors and disparagers, family members and Obama himself, Remnick explores the elite institutions that first exposed Obama to social tensions, and the intellectual currents that contributed to his identity. Using America’s racial history as a backdrop for Obama’s own story, Remnick further reveals how an initially rootless and confused young man built on the experiences of an earlier generation of black leaders to become one of the central figures of our time. Masterfully written and eminently readable, The Bridge is destined to be a lasting and illuminating work for years to come, by a writer with an unparalleled gift for revealing the historical significance of our present moment.
This two-volume encyclopedia presents a state-by-state history of African Americans in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. African American populations are established in every area of the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska (more than10 percent of the population of Fairbanks, Alaska, is African American). Black Americans have played an invaluable role in creating our great nation in myriad ways, including their physical contributions and labor during the slavery era; intellectually, spiritually, and politically; in service to our country in military duty; and in areas of popular culture such as music, art, sports, and entertainment. The chapters extend chronologically from the colonial period to the present. Each chapter presents a timeline of African American history in the state, a historical overview, notable African Americans and their pioneering accomplishments, and state-specific traditions or activities. This state-by-state treatment of information allows readers to take pride in what happened in their state and in the famous people who came from their state.