Government
Francis L. Cardoza was elected State Treasurer of South Carolina in 1858.
Francis Lewis Cardozo was a minister, educator, and politician who was born free in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 1, 1836. Cardozo was of mixed ancestry, as his father, Isaac Nunez Cardozo, was a Sephardic Jew, and his mother, Lydia Williams Weston, was a free woman of color. South Carolina laws did not allow for interracial marriages, so the couple’s union was considered a common-law marriage. The couple had five children, three boys and two girls. Cardozo and his brothers were sent to a private school for children of color.
At the end of his schooling, Cardozo worked as a carpenter and shipbuilder. In 1858, he used his savings to pay his way on a ship headed to Scotland and enrolled at the University of Glasgow, where he began to study Greek and Latin. He studied at Edinburgh Theological and London seminaries and was an ordained Presbyterian minister when he returned to the United States in 1864. Cardozo became the pastor of the Temple Street Congregational Church in New Haven, Connecticut, and married Catherine Rowena Howell on December 20, 1864. The couple had six children.
Cardozo returned to Charleston in 1865 as an agent for the American Missionary Association (AMA), founded in 1846 by an abolitionist group from Albany, New York. He worked as the superintendent of an AMA-established school and was responsible for its transformation into The Avery Normal Institute. The institute focused on training Black teachers. Cardozo, a member of the Republican Party, became involved in Reconstruction politics. By 1868, he was selected as a delegate to the South Carolina State Constitutional Convention, where he chaired the education committee. He called for the dissolution of the plantation system and racially integrated schools. Cardozo’s speech led to his election as the first Black Secretary of State in South Carolina’s history later in 1868.
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Government
24th Amendment abolished poll tax,1864
Government
Despite its creation in 1791, the District of Columbia did not have its own local government or mayor until 1974. The people of Washington elected Walter E. Washington, an attorney and expert on urban housing, as their first mayor. He was born in the District in 1915, attended Howard University and Howard Law School and served on the National Capital Housing authority. Ironically, the citizens of the capital of the free world had to fight for their own self-determination. When they succeeded, they chose Walter E. Washington to be their leader. He was re-elected in 1976.
Government
Hatcher was elected mayor of Gary, Ind., in 1967, and he remained in office for the next 20 years. A Democrat, he was one of the first blacks to serve as mayor of a major U.S. city. Hatcher was also a longtime friend and advisor to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He served as Jackson’s campaign chairman in the 1984 presidential race and as an advisor in the 1988 race.
Hatcher attended Indiana University, receiving his BS in 1956. He subsequently earned a law degree at Valparaiso University in 1959. He moved to Gary and began practicing law in East Chicago, Ind. He served as a deputy prosecutor for Lake County, Ind., from 1961 to 1963, when he was elected to Gary’s city council. After having served as mayor of Gary for five terms, he was defeated in a bid for a sixth term in the 1987 Democratic primary. Hatcher started his own consulting firm, R. Gordon Hatcher & Associates, in 1988, and he began teaching law at Valparaiso University in 1989. He ran again for mayor of Gary in 1991 but was defeated in the primary.
Government
(b. April 3, 1838, Kaskaskia, Ill., U.S.–d. Oct. 8, 1893, Washington, D.C.), first black elected to the U.S. Congress, who was denied his seat by that body.
During the Civil War (1861-65) he served as a clerk in the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1865 he moved to New Orleans, where he became active in the Republican Party, serving as inspector of customs and later as a commissioner of streets. He also published a newspaper,
The Free South, later named The Radical Standard. Elected to Congress from Louisiana in 1868 to fill an unexpired term, Menard failed to overcome an election challenge by the loser, and Congress refused to seat either man. In 1871 he moved to Florida, where he was again active in the Republican Party and published the Island City News in Jacksonville.
Government
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. As a leader of the civil rights movement, he was a close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr. He collaborated with King and E. D. Nixon to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott and co-created and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He became president of the SCLC following the assassination of King in 1968; he led the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., as well as other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. He also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).
In 1971, Abernathy addressed the United Nations speaking about world peace. He also assisted in brokering a deal between the FBI and American Indian Movement protestors during the Wounded Knee incident of 1973. He retired from his position as president of the SCLC in 1977 and became president emeritus. Later that year he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives for the 5th district of Georgia. He later founded the Foundation for Economic Enterprises Development, and he testified before the U.S. Congress in support of extending the Voting Rights Act in 1982.
In 1989, Abernathy wrote And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, a controversial autobiography about his and King’s involvement in the civil rights movement. Abernathy eventually became less active in politics and returned to his work as a minister. He died of heart disease on April 17, 1990. His tombstone is engraved with the words “I tried”.
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