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May 10

Pinckney
Pinchback
On this date we mark the birth of Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback. He was a Black Civil War officer and politician.

Born in Macon, GA, in 1837, the son of a former slave and a white planter. Pinchback began supporting his family at 12 after his father died. The family had moved to Cincinnati, where Pinchback found work as a cabin boy. When the Civil War broke out, he went to New Orleans, and in 1863, was able to join the Union National Guard. He raised and commanded an entire company in a month. Racism prevailed, though; he was treated cruelly in the New Orleans area and he was not given his officer's commission because he was Black.

After the war, Pinchback entered politics in Louisiana. In 1872, when Governor Henry Clay Warmoth was impeached, Pinchback, who had been lieutenant governor, succeeded him, serving for over a year, and thus became the first Black governor in America.

Pinckney Pinchback earned a law degree from Straight University in New Orleans and was admitted to the Louisiana Bar in 1886. He moved to Washington, D.C., and in 1890 organized the American Citizens Equal Rights Association, traveling extensively throughout the country forming local branches. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback died in 1921.

Reference:
Black Americans In Congress 1870-1989.
Bruce A. Ragsdale & Joel D. Treese
U.S. Government Printing Office
Raymond W. Smock, historian and director 1990
E185.96.R25

to be a Politician

 

    

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