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“There Was Never Any Pay-day For the Negroes”: Jourdon
Anderson Demands Wages
As slavery collapsed at the close of the Civil War, former slaves quickly explored
freedom’s possibilities by establishing churches that were independent of white control,
seeking education in Freedmen’s Bureau schools, and even building and maintaining
their own schools. Many took to the roads as they sought opportunities to work and to
reconstitute their families. Securing their liberty meant finding the means of support to
obtain land or otherwise benefit from their own labor, as Jourdon Anderson made clear in
this letter to his former owner. He addressed Major Anderson from Ohio, where he had
secured good wages for himself and schooling for his children. Many freedpeople argued
that they were entitled to land in return for their years of unpaid labor and looked to the
federal government to help achieve economic self-sufficiency. Black southerners
understood the value of their own labor and looked for economic independence and a free
labor market in their battle over the meaning of emancipation in post-Civil War America.
Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you
wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than
anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have
hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they
never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by
his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not
want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to
go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen,
Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in
the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working
in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if
he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing
tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable
home for Mandy, —the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson),—and the children—Milly,
Jane and Grundy—go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head
for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly.
We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were
slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell
them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would
have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what
wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my
advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score,
as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of
Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are
sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your
sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make
us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I
served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars
a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven
thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages
has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to
me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice
entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq.,
Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in
your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs
which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for
generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in
Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and
cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his
hire.
In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane,
who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda
and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve, and die if it comes to that, than have
my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You
will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your
neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and
have them form virtuous habits.
P.S. —Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when
you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson
Source: Reprinted in Lydia Maria Child, The Freedmen’s Book (Boston: Tickenor and
Fields, 1865), 265–67.
In addition, a group of young Northern reformers came to the islands to educate the freedpeople and assist in the transition from slavery to freedom. The conflicts among these groups offered a preview of the national debate over Reconstruction. Emancipation The destruction of slavery powerfully shaped the course of the Civil War and the debate over Reconstruction. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 infused the Union war effort with a new moral spirit, and ensured that Northern victory would produce a social revolution in the South. Two years later, Congress enacted and the states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. Although the Lincoln administration at first insisted that the preservation of the Union, not the abolition of slavery, was its objective, slaves quickly seized the opportunity to strike for their freedom. As the Union army occupied Southern territory, slaves by the thousands abandoned the plantations. Their actions forced a reluctant Lincoln administration down the road to emancipation. The disintegration of slavery was one among several considerations that led President Lincoln, on January 1, 1863, to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Lack of military success, pressure from antislavery Northerners, the need to forestall British recognition of the Confederacy, and the desire to tap Southern black manpower for the Union army also contributed to the decision. The Proclamation, which applied only to areas outside Union control, did not immediately abolish slavery. But it made emancipation an irrevocable war aim, profoundly changing the character of the Civil War. Even before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, thousands of slaves fled to freedom behind the lines of the Union army as it advanced into Confederate territory. In 1862, Union General Benjamin F. Butler designated three escaped slaves as "contrabands of war," or property of military value subject to confiscation. Northern newspapers picked up the term and thereafter slaves who came into Union lines were known as contrabands. African Americans seeking freedom behind enemy lines included families with young children. Note the women with traditional African-style headwraps.
Sculpted to commemorate the ratification of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States, the idealized figures of "Forever Free" convey a message of triumph over adversity and hope for the future. Artist Mary Edmonia Lewis, the daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and an African-American father, created the tableau while studying classical art in Rome; she originally entitled her work "The Morning of Liberty. Issued on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation transformed the character of the Civil War by making the destruction of slavery an object of the Union war effort. It also authorized the enlistment of African Americans in the Union armed forces. By placing slavery on the road to complete abolition, it made a postwar reconstruction of southern society inevitable. On December 8, 1863, President Lincoln offered a preliminary plan to reunite Confederate states with the Union. Known as the 10 Percent Plan, Lincoln's proposal offered lenient terms of pardon and amnesty to Confederates who swore allegiance to the United States, but it did not give former slaves any citizenship rights. A medal struck in France illustrates how Abraham Lincoln, "the honest man who abolished slavery, restored the Union, and saved the Republic," became an international symbol of liberty after the Civil War. The medal's imagery also includes a black soldier and a ballot box. In January 1865, the U.S. Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, irrevocably abolishing slavery throughout the nation. To commemorate the occasion, members of the House and Senate, along with Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and President Abraham Lincoln signed several copies of the document. For the next several years, commercial printers sold souvenir copies of the historic document. Of the Emancipation Proclamation's provisions, few were more radical in their implications than the enrollment of African-Americans into the Union army. By fighting and dying for the Union, black soldiers staked a claim to citizenship in the reconstructed nation that would emerge from the Civil War. Before the war, blacks had been excluded from the regular army and militia. In 1861 and 1862, the Lincoln administration had rejected black volunteers, fearing that white soldiers would refuse to serve alongside them.
Rehearsal for Reconstruction As the Union army occupied Southern territory, it began to devise policies to deal with the transition from slavery to freedom, and the interrelated questions of access to land and the organization of free labor. Many of the issues central to Reconstruction were fought out on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, even as the Civil War continued. The most famous "rehearsal for Reconstruction" took place on the Sea Islands just off the coast of South Carolina. When the Union navy occupied the area in November 1861, the white population fled, leaving behind a community of some 10,000 slaves, who believed freedom meant access to land and the ability to direct their own labor.
Their aspirations soon brought them into conflict with new arrivals from the North --
Treasury agents hoping to restore cotton production, investors seeking to acquire Sea
Island land, and a group of young reformers, known as Gideon's Band, who sought to
assist the freedpeople by providing education and preparing them for the competitive
world of free labor.
Laura M. Towne (1825-1901), who devoted nearly forty years to educating the freedpeople, epitomized the spirit of New England reform after the Civil War. Born to a prosperous Pittsburgh family, Towne grew up in Boston and Philadelphia. As a young woman, she became an abolitionist. In April 1862, under the auspices of the Port Royal Relief Committee of Philadelphia, Towne set out for the South Carolina Sea Islands, where nearly 10,000 slaves were now within Union lines. Like others involved in the Port Royal Experiment, she hoped to make the islands a showcase for freedom by demonstrating blacks' capacity for education and productive free labor. Towne shared the paternalistic attitudes toward blacks typical of the time, but she genuinely wanted to assist in the transition from slavery to freedom. In September 1862, Towne and her friend Ellen Murray established Penn School on St. Helena Island. The school offered a traditional New England curriculum of arithmetic, reading and writing, geography, and classical languages. After 1870, it also trained black teachers. For several decades, it was the Sea Islands' only secondary school for blacks. Towne, who never married, volunteered her services and supported the school with contributions from Northern supporters. While many Northerners returned home after the end of Reconstruction, Towne remained, operating the Penn School until her death. It continued in operation until the 1960s, and survives today as a community center.
Penn School (Sea Island School No. 1) reflected the New England sensibilities of its founders and funders. The school's prefabricated structure included a tower for a cast-iron bell donated by Laura Towne. Published by the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association, this broadside is illustrated with a picture of "Sea-island School, No 1--St. Helena Island [South Carolina], Established April, 1862." May 1863 letters from teachers at St. Helena Island describe their young students as "the prettiest little things you ever saw, with solemn little faces, and eyes like stars." Vacations seemed a hardship to these students, who were so anxious to improve their reading and writing that they begged not to "be punished so again." Voluntary contributions from various organizations aided fourteen hundred teachers in providing literacy and vocational education for 150,000 freedmen. Some of the black and white teachers and missionaries from the North, known as
Gideon's Band, who went to the Sea Islands to work with the freedpeople.
The first group arrived in March 1862 and included women such as Susan Walker, a close friend of Salmon Chase (1808-1873), then Secretary of the Treasury. These women taught the former slaves to read and sew and were responsible for distributing and selling the clothing sent to them by northern freedmen's aid associations. When federal forces occupied the Sea Islands in November 1861, almost all white inhabitants fled to the mainland, leaving behind a community of nearly 10, African-Americans. In the "Port Royal Experiment," the federal govenrment, Northern investors, missionaries, teachers, and the former slaves sought to determine the nature of this transition to freedom. Questions that arose over land ownership and control of labor during this "rehearsal for reconstruction" became critical issues of the postwar era. Freedmen living on the Sea Islands and throughout the Union-occupied South labored for wages under terms of yearly contracts drawn up under army supervision. Although the contract labor system allowed production to resume by stabilizing labor
relations during the war, it kept the vast majority of freedmen poor and landless.
In June 1862, the federal government authorized the sale of abandoned lands at public auction. Although some former slaves pooled their resources to acquire land, Northern investors purchased most of the property. On January 16, 1865, Union general William T. Sherman, shortly after capturing Savannah, issued Special Field Order 15, setting aside land on the Sea Islands and
As a result, Congress overturned Johnson's program. Between 1866 and 1869, Congress enacted new laws and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, guaranteeing blacks' civil rights and giving black men the right to vote. These measures for the first time enshrined in American law the principle that the rights of citizens could not be abridged because of race. And they led directly to the creation of new governments in the South elected by blacks as well as white - America's first experiment in interracial democracy. Presidential Reconstruction In 1865 President Andrew Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South. The conduct of the governments he established turned many Northerners against the president's policies. The end of the Civil War found the nation without a settled Reconstruction policy. In May 1865, President Andrew Johnson offered a pardon to all white Southerners except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these later received individual pardons), and authorized them to create new governments. Blacks were denied any role in the process. Johnson also ordered nearly all the land in the hands of the government returned to its prewar owners -- dashing black hope for economic autonomy. At the outset, most Northerners believed Johnson's plan deserved a chance to succeed. The course followed by Southern state governments under Presidential Reconstruction, however, turned most of the North against Johnson's policy. Members of the old Southern elite, including many who had served in the Confederate government and army, returned to power. The new legislatures passed the Black Codes, severely limiting the former slaves' legal rights and economic options so as to force them to return to the plantations as dependent laborers. Some states limited the occupations open to blacks. None allowed any blacks to vote, or provided public funds for their education. Read the Mississippi Black Code (1865) Read the Louisiana Black Code (1865) The apparent inability of the South's white leaders to accept the reality of emancipation undermined Northern support for Johnson's policies. Biographical Sidebar: Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) came from the humblest origins of any man who reached the White House. Born in poverty in North Carolina, he worked as a youth as a tailor's apprentice.
After moving to Greenville, Tennessee, Johnson achieved success through politics. Beginning as an alderman, he rose to serve two terms as governor. Although the owner of five slaves before the Civil War, Johnson identified himself as the champion of his state's "honest yeomen" and a foe of large planters, who he described as a "bloated, corrupted aristocracy." He strongly promoted public education, and free land for Western settlers. A fervent believer in states rights, Johnson was also a strong defender of the Union. He was the only Senator from a seceding state to remain at his post in 1861, and when Union forces occupied Tennessee, Abraham Lincoln named him military governor. In 1864, he was elected vice president. Succeeding to the presidency after Lincoln's death, Johnson failed to provide the nation with enlightened leadership, or deal effectively with Congress. Racism prevented him from responding to black demands for civil rights, and personal inflexibility rendered him unable to compromise with Congress. Johnson's vetoes of Reconstruction legislation and opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment alienated most Republicans. In 1868, he came within one vote of being removed from office by impeachment. He was returned to the U.S. Senate in 1875, but died within a few months of taking office. In 1851, Andrew Johnson, then a U.S. Congressman, became a Mason. Perhaps his lifelong devotion to the order reflected his aspirations to rise above his humble origins and the pride he took in doing so. The symbols on Johnson's ceremonial apron indicate that he had attained a high rank in the fraternal order. The Black Codes, a series of laws passed by Southern states to define freedman's rights and responsibilities, imposed serious restrictions upon former slaves. According to Florida's Black Code, blacks who violated broke labor contracts could be whipped, pilloried, and sold for up to one year's labor. The Black Codes created an uproar among many Northerners, who considered them to be another form of slavery. Learn more about the Southern “Black Codes” of 1865- Reconstructing the South became a divisive issue in national politics, pitting President Johnson against the Republican majority in Congress. Eventually, Congress implemented its own plan of Reconstruction, based on federal action protecting the rights of the former slaves.
and change the character of our government,” Republicans in Congress seized control of Reconstruction from the This early political cartoon of Thomas Nast is one of a pair called Pardon and Franchise. The two cartoons contrast Confederate politicians and generals applying for pardons, which may give them the right to vote and hold office, with a black Union soldier who has lost his leg and does not have the right to vote. Look at the Pardon cartoon Learn more about Thomas Nast Learn more about Harper's Weekly cartoons on Reconstruction Ratified in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited states from abridging the right to vote because of race, although it allowed other restrictions based on education, property and sex to remain in effect. The Fifteenth Amendment declared that the right to vote could not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It did not explicitly guarantee the right to hold office or serve on juries; nor did it ensure federal protection of voting rights. Nevertheless, at a time when only seven northern states allowed blacks to vote, the Fifteenth Amendment represented a significant step toward legal equality. This elaborate allegory with religious overtones embodies the lofty ideals associated with the early years of Reconstruction. The United States, depicted as a colossal pavillion, is literally being reconstructed as the old columns of slavery are replaced with Justice, Liberty, and Education The heavens are filled with portraits of American heroes from the North and South, including John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln. Below is a vignette with black and white infants sleeping beneath an American eagle holding a streamer that reads, "All men are born free and equal."
Thaddeus Stevens
The most prominent Radical Republican in Congress during Reconstruction, Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) was born and educated in New England. He moved as a young man to Pennsylvania, where he practiced law, became an iron
manufacturer, and entered politics. Stevens served several terms in the legislature, where he won renown as an advocate of free public education. He also championed the rights of Pennsylvania's black population. A delegate to the Pennsylvania constitutional convention of 1838, he refused to sign the document because it limited voting to whites. As a Congressman, Stevens during the Civil War urged the administration to free and arm the slaves and by 1865 favored black suffrage in the South. He became one of Andrew Johnson's fiercest critics and an early advocate of his impeachment. To Stevens, Reconstruction offered an opportunity to create a "perfect republic" based on the principle of equal rights for all citizens. As floor leader of House Republicans, he helped to shepherd Reconstruction legislation through Congress, although he thought much of it too moderate. His plan for confiscating the land of Confederate planters and dividing it among Northern settlers and the former slaves failed to pass. Thaddeus Stevens is buried in a small cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His tombstone has this inscription: I repose in this quiet and secluded spot Not from any natural preference for solitude But, finding other Cemeteries limited as to Race by Charter Rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death The Principles which I advocated Through a long life EQUALITY OF MAN BEFORE HIS CREATOR Learn more about Thaddeus Stevens' grave In 1865, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to provide assistance to former slaves. Union Army general Oliver O. Howard was the Bureau's Commissioner. Among other responsibilities, bureau agents negotiated labor contracts and settled disputes between black and white Southerners. The Bureau's jurisdiction in civil matters eventually became a point of controversy. The National Debate Over Reconstruction; Impeachment; and the Election of Grant The breach between President and Congress inaugurated a period of bitter debate over Reconstruction. Congress failed in 1868 to remove Johnson from office, but the election of Ulysses S. Grant as his successor guaranteed that Reconstruction as established by the Republican party would continue.
Americans (shouldered by George C. Gorham, Republican candidate for governor of California in 1867) On February 25, 1868, the House Managers of Impeachment, led by Thaddeus Stevens and John A. Bingham of Ohio, went before the U.S. Senate to present eleven articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson. The case rested on Johnson's removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton from office, but in reality grew out of congressional disapproval of Johnson's Reconstruction policies. On May 26, 1868, the Senate voted 35-19 to convict Johnson, one vote short of the two-thirds necessary to remove him from office. The House Board of Managers for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson included, standing from left to right: James F. Wilson, Iowa; George S. Boutwell, Massachusetts; John Logan, Illinois; seated, from left: Benjamin F. Butler, Massachusetts; Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania; Thomas E. Williams, Pennsylvania; and John A. Bingham, Ohio. Tennessee voters reelected Andrew Johnson to the Senate in 1874. He died, however, within a few months of his return to Washington. He was buried wrapped in the American flag, with his head resting on a copy of the Constitution Ulysses S. Grant chose Schuyler Colfax, former speaker of the House, as his running mate in the 1868 presidential campaign. "Let us have peace," the last line of Grant's letter accepting the nomination, became the Republicans' campaign slogan The 1868 presidential campaign revolved around the issues of Reconstruction. The Democrats' nominee, Horatio Seymour, ran on a platform opposing Reconstruction. "This Is A White Man's Government" became the slogan of a Democratic campaign that openly appealed to racial fears and prejudice. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast ridiculed the Democratic party as a coalition of Irish immigrants (left), white supremacists like Nathan Bedford Forrest, leader of the Ku Klux Klan (center), and Northern capitalists represented by Horatio Seymour (right). Nast's cartoon depicted Democrats as the oppressors of the black race, represented by a black Union soldier felled while carrying the American flag and a ballot box. Reconstruction Government in the South Under the terms of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, Republican governments came to power throughout the South, offering blacks, for the first time in American history, a genuine share of political power. These governments established the region's first public school systems, enacted civil rights laws, and sought to promote the region's economic development. The coming of black suffrage under the Reconstruction Act of 1867 produced a wave of political mobilization among African Americans in the South.
In Union Leagues and impromptu gatherings, blacks organized to demand equality before the law and economic opportunity. Blacks were joined by white newcomers from the North - called "carpetbaggers" by their political opponents. And the Republican party in some states attracted a considerable number of white Southerners, to whom Democrats applied the name "scalawag" - mostly Unionist small farmers but including some prominent plantation owners. By 1870, the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union under new constitutions that marked a striking departure in Southern government. For the first time in the region's history, state-funded public school systems were established, as well as orphan asylums and other facilities. The new governments passed the region's first civil rights laws, reformed the South's antiquated tax system, and embarked on ambitious and expensive programs of economic development, hoping that railroad and factory development would produce a prosperity shared by both races. Composed of slave ministers, artisans, and Civil War veterans, and blacks who had been free before the Civil War, a black political leadership emerged that pressed aggressively for an end to the South's racial caste system. African Americans served in virtually every governmental capacity during Reconstruction, from member of Congress to state and local officials. Their presence in positions of political power symbolized the political revolution wrought by Reconstruction. The central figure is George Peabody, whose philosophy supported Southern schools but opposed racial integration. On either side are Union Army officers transforming military weapons into tools for agriculture. In the background "300,000" mechanics, backed by northern capital, carry tools for the "Reconstruction of the Union. An optimistic view of Reconstruction with Biblical overtones presents key elements of the Republican plan to remake the South along Northern lines: education, capital, and economic development. Under provisions of the Reconstruction Act passed by Congress in 1867, Southern states could no longer restrict the right to vote because of race. This engraving depicts three members of the black community - an artisan, a member of the middle class, and a soldier - standing in line to cast their ballots. Read the First Reconstruction Act of 1867 Read the Second Reconstruction Act of 1867 Read the Third Reconstruction Act of 1867
Biographical Sidebar: Hiram Revels The first African Americans to serve in the United States Senate, Hiram R. Revels (1822-1901) and Blanche K. Bruce (1841-1898) illustrate the diverse backgrounds and community activities of Reconstruction's black political leaders. Revels was born free in North Carolina, attended Knox College in Illinois, and before the Civil War preached throughout the Midwest for the African Methodist Episcopal Church. During the Civil War, he served as chaplain for a black regiment. Revels came to Mississippi in 1865 and became involved in the movement to establish schools for the former slaves. After being elected to the state Senate in 1869, Revels was chosen by the legislature to fill Mississippi's unexpired term in the U. S. Senate, serving from February 1870 to March 1871. After leaving the Senate, Revels was for several years president of Alcorn University, an institution for African American students established during Reconstruction. He also worked for the Methodist Episcopal Church, which he had joined during the Civil War, and in 1876 unsuccessfully protested his church's plans to hold racially segregated annual conferences in the South. Lithograph copies of the Revels portrait by Theodore Kaufman, who had emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1855, sold widely in the North during Reconstruction. Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, commenting on the dignified image in the lithograph, noted that African-Americans "so often see ourselves described and painted as monkeys, that we think it a great piece of fortune to find an exception to this general rule." Biographical Sidebar: Blanche K. Bruce Unlike Revels, Blanche K. Bruce (1841-1898) was born a slave. He may have been the son of his owner, a wealthy Virginia planter, and was educated by the same private tutor who instructed his master's legitimate child. Bruce was taken to Missouri in 1850, and in the early days of the Civil War escaped to Kansas, where he established the state's first school for African American children. Bruce came to Mississippi in 1868 with 75 cents to his name, and launched a successful political career in Bolivar county, where he served as sheriff and tax collector, and edited a local newspaper. During his term in the Senate (1875-81), he worked to obtain federal aid for economic development in Mississippi.
A staunch defender of black civil rights, Bruce also spoke eloquently in opposition to the 1878 law prohibiting Chinese immigrants from entering the United States. Bruce remained in Washington after his term expired, holding a succession of government appointments. His wife, Josephine, who had been the first black teacher in the Cleveland public schools, went on to serve as Woman Principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. One of the South's most brilliant political organizers during Reconstruction, Robert B. Elliott (1842-1884) appears to have been born in Liverpool, England, of West Indian parents and was educated in England, graduating from Eton College in 1859. He came to Boston on an English naval vessel shortly after the Civil War. After moving to South Carolina in 1867, Elliott established a law practice and helped to organize the Republican party. He "knew the political condition of every nook and corner throughout the state," said one political ally. Elliott served in the constitutional convention of 1868 and the state legislature, and was twice elected to Congress. He resigned in 1874 to fight political corruption in South Carolina, where he became Speaker of the House. In Congress, Elliott delivered a celebrated speech in favor of the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited discrimination in public accommodations because of race. Elliott himself had been denied service in a restaurant while traveling to Washington. In 1881, Elliott headed a delegation that met with president-elect James A. Garfield to complain that with the end of Reconstruction, Southern blacks were "citizens in name and not in fact." Because of his role in politics, Elliott's law practice was boycotted by white patrons. He died penniless in New Orleans. A print celebrating the heroes and history of black freedom depicts the famous address by Congressman Robert B. Elliott in favor of the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The print also includes a portrait of the bill's author, Charles Sumner, an image of Lincoln, and an optimistic view of the future with a scene of black family captioned, "American Slave Labour Is of the Past - Free Labour Is of the Present - We Toil for Our Children and Not for Those of Others." Biographical Sidebar: Mifflin Gibbs and Jonathan Gibbs The sons of an African American minister in Philadelphia, Mifflin Gibbs (1823-1915) and Jonathan Gibbs (1827-1874) had remarkable careers before becoming involved in Reconstruction politics.
