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First
Person of Color in the United States to be elected governor
in 1875. |
The first Person of Color
to serve as governer of a state was not Douglas Wilder, but
P.B.S. Pinchback. His tenure as governor, however, was much
shorter than Wilder's. Pinchback had been elected president
pro tempore of the Louisiana senate in 1871 and promoted to
lieutenant governor upon the death of Oscar J. Dunn. Pinchback
was governor of Louisiana for just forty-six days, from December
9, 1872, to January 13, 1873, after the elected governor, Henry
Clay Warmouth, was impeached.
Pinchback was never able to reach the governor's mansion by
election, but he retired to Washington, D.C., where, along with
Blanche Bruce, he became a celebrity in Washington social circles.
Governer P.B.S Pinchback, was a former cabin boy, shrewd, capable,
vain, a gambling type, a man who would put everything on an
ace and, losing, walk away with a smile. Elliott was a dark-skinned
free person
of color
with a somewhat mysterious background.
Compliments: Library of Congress |
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* Pinchback was fair-skinned, the son of a Mississippi planter
and a colored woman who
bore him ten children.
Pinchback was of like mind: he was what he was. A congressional
investigating committee asked him if the governor acknowledged
his strength. Pinchback was frank. "Oh, yes; he always
acknowledged he couldn't get along without me. I have to tell
you the truth." Bold, elegantly turned out, daring, Pinchback
made his mark in reconstructed Louisiana. By turns a senator,
lieutenant governor and governor, he held more major offices
than any other person
of color
in American history.
In the fall of 1872 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In January, 1873, he was elected to the Senate. He went
to Washington, therefore, with the extraordinary distinction
of being both a congressman-elect. (There were also disquieting
rumors that Pinchback intended to make himself vice-president
elect.) Pinchback did not go as a beggar. "Sir," he
told the Senate, "I demand simple justice. I am not here
as a beggar. I do not care as far as I am personally concerned
whether you give me my seat or not. I will go back to my people
and come here but I tell you to preserve your own consistency.
Do not make fish of me while you make flesh of everybody else."
Compliments: Library of Congress |
For three years the Senate
grappled with Pinchback's case. Almost the whole of an extra
session of Congress was devoted to the senator-elect from Louisiana.
Finally, after hours of debate, he was rejected. The real reason,
some authorities insist, was that the senators' wives told them
that they did not intend to associate with Mrs. Pinchback. During
the controversy "Pinch," as he was called, became
a national figure. Washington women, charmed by his "Brazilian"
good looks, went out of their way to meet him and Pichback stories
made the rounds. The Washington correspondent of the New York
Commercial Advertiser was impressed by the senator-elect. "Aside
from the political view of the question (two factions in Louisiana
were competing for national recognition),'' he wrote, "Pinchback's
presence in the United States Senate is not open to the smallest
objection, except the old Bourbon war-whoops of color. He
is about thirty-seven years of age, not darker than an Arab.
. . . His features are regular, just perceptibly African,
his eyes intensely black and brilliant, with a keen, restless
glance.
His most repellent point is a sardonic smile which, hovering
continuously over his lips, gives him an evil look, undeniably
handsome as the man is. It seems as though the scorn which
must rage within him, at sight of the dirty ignorant men from
the South who affect to look down upon him on account of his
color, finds play imperceptibly about his lips. . . Mr.
Pinchback is the best dressed Southern man we have had in
Congress from the South since the days when gentlemen were
Democrats."
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