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October 5
He was born in Florence, AL, but when he was six years old, he and his family moved to Kansas. His formal education included business and bookkeeping classes before he ran away to Dayton, Ohio, with two white friends. He ended up in Chicago by 1889, as a painter and decorator. There he acquired a fortune in real estate and the stock market. In 1904, De Priest entered politics, and was elected as the Cook County Commissioner. Four years later he was appointed an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention and became Chicago’s first black alderman in 1915. In 1928, he became the first black from outside the south to be elected to Congress; here De Priest became the unofficial spokesman to the then 11 million African-Americans during the 1920s and 1930s. He proposed that states who discriminated against blacks be given fewer congressional seats and that a monthly pension be given to ex-slaves over the age of 75. His stance against federal relief programs during the depression dismayed many of his supporters, however. In 1934, Arthur W. Mitchell defeated him for his congressional seat. De Priest remained active in public life, serving from 1943 to 1947 as alderman of the third ward in Chicago, then returning to his real estate business. He died on May 12, 1951. 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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