19th Century African American Legislators of Tennessee

1
19th CenturyAfrican AmericanLegislators of
Tennessee

• Produced at the Tennessee State Library and
  Archives
• Nashville, Tennessee
• 2005
• .

2
African American Legislators in Tennessee in the
19th Century and Their Terms

• SAMPSON W. KEEBLE . . . . . . Davidson County . .
  . . . . . 1873-1874
• JOHN W. BOYD . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tipton
  County . . . . . . . . . 1881-1884 (2 terms)
• THOMAS F. CASSELS . . . . . . . Shelby County . .
  . . . . . . . 1881-1882
• ISAAC F. NORRIS . . . . . . . . . . .Shelby
  County . . . . . . . . . 1881-1882
• THOMAS A. SYKES . . . . . . . . . Davidson County
  . . . . . . .1881-1882
• LEON HOWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . Shelby County
  . . . . . . . . 1883-1884
• SAMUEL A. McELWEE . . . . . . Haywood County . .
  . . . . .1883-1888 (3 terms)
• DAVID F. RIVERS . . . . . . . . . . Fayette
  County . . . . . . . . 1883-1884
• GREENE E. EVANS . . . . . . . . . Shelby County
  . . . . . . . . 1885-1886
• WILLIAM FIELDS . . . . . . . . . . .Shelby County
  . . . . . . . . .1885-1886
• WILLIAM C. HODGE . . . . . . . . Hamilton County
  . . . . . . .1885-1886
• MONROE W. GOODEN . . . . . . .Fayette County . .
  . . . . . . 1887-1888
• STYLES L. HUTCHINS . . . . . . .Hamilton County .
  . . . . . .1887-1888
• JESSE M. H. GRAHAM . . . . . . .Montgomery County
  . . . . 1897 (unseated)
• No other African Americans were elected to the TN
  General Assembly until 1964.
• .
• ..
• ..

3
Samson W. Keeble

• SAMPSON W. KEEBLE
• ca. 1833 - 1887
• A Republican barber, he was
• elected to represent Davidson County
• in the 38th Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1873-1874
• He was the first African American
• elected to serve in the
• Tennessee legislature.
• ..
• ..

Historical marker on Broadway at Second Avenue
in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
4
Sampson W. Keeble, p. 2

• Sampson W. Keeble was a Nashville
  businessman, the owner of the Rock City Barber
  Shop, when he was elected to the 34th General
  Assembly. Born in 1833 in Rutherford County,
  Tennessee, he was the son of Sampson and Nancy
  Keeble. His parents were the slaves of H. P.
  Keeble, a prominent attorney.

• Keeble worked as a press-man for newspapers
  in Murfreesboro before the Civil War, then fought
  in the Confederate Army during most of the
  conflict. After it ended he established his
  barber shop in Nashville and served on the boards
  of directors of a bank and several other African
  American organizations.

5
Sampson W. Keeble, p. 3

• In November 1872, riding the
  coattails of Ulysses S. Grants Republican
  Presidential victory, Keeble was narrowly elected
  by Davidson County voters to serve in the
  Tennessee General Assembly.
• During his single term in the
  legislature Keeble introduced bills to protect
  wage earners, to amend Nashvilles charter in
  order to allow blacks to operate businesses
  downtown, and to appropriate funds for the
  Tennessee Manual Labor University. Not one of
  his bills received sufficient votes to pass into
  law.
• Keeble died in 1887 and was buried in Greenwood
  Cemetery in Nashville.

6
42nd General Assembly, 1881-82
7
John W. Boyd

• John W. Boyd
• ca. 1841 - ca. 1900
• A Republican attorney, he was
• elected to represent Tipton County
• in the 42nd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1881-1882
• and re-elected to
• the 43rd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1883-1884
• .
• .

8
John W. Boyd, p. 2

• John W. Boyd was born in Georgia about
  1841, but his parents, Jackson and Martha Boyd,
  moved to Tipton County, TN, when he was a young
  boy. He and his wife, Martha Dogette of Mason,
  TN, were the parents of five children.

• An attorney during Reconstruction, Boyd
  was appointed to be a magistrate in the Ninth
  Civil District of Tipton County in 1878 1879.
  He was the census enumerator for Civil District
  10 in 1880 and was elected the same year to the
  legislature.

9
John W. Boyd, p. 3

• In the General Assembly John Boyd worked
  diligently with other legislators to overturn
  Chapter 130 of the Acts of 1875, the first of
  Tennessees Jim Crow laws, which permitted racial
  discrimination in public facilities. Boyd also
  attempted to repeal the restrictive contract
  labor law, which had the effect of keeping
  working blacks in bondage.

10
Chapter 130, Acts of Tennessee, 1875

• The African American legislators worked
  harder to overturn this 1875 law than almost any
  other. An amended version of Boyds bill to
  repeal it was passed in 1883, but it did not
  effectively deal with the larger issue of racial
  discrimination.
• Excerpt Hereafter no keeper of any Hotel or
  public House, or carrier of passengers for hire,
  or conductor, driver, or employee of such carrier
  or keeper of any place of amusement or employee
  of such keeper shall be bound, or under any
  obligation, to entertain, carry, or admit any
  person whom he shall for any reason whatever
  choose not to entertain, carry, or admit to his
  house, Hotel, carriage, or means of
  Transportation or place of amusement, nor shall
  any right exist in favor of any such person so
  refused admission but the right of such
  keepers...and their employees to control the
  access admittance or exclusion of
  persons...shall be as complete as that of any
  private person over his private house, carriage,
  or private theatre or places of amusement for his
  family.

11
This shows the cover and first page of John W.
Boyds 1883 bill, HB 663, to prevent racial
discrimination by railroad companies. The bill
was amended to order separate accommodations for
black and white passengers. Although Boyd
objected to, and even voted against the amended
bill, it passed into law by a vote of 56-19.
12
Thomas F. Cassels

• Thomas F. Cassels
• ca. 1849 1906
• A Republican attorney, he was
• elected to represent Shelby County
• in the 42nd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1881-1882
• .
• .

13
Thomas F. Cassels, p. 2

• Thomas F. Cassels was born in Kentucky about
  1849 to free parents. He attended Oberlin
  College in Ohio, and then moved to Memphis to
  practice law. He was the first African American
  lawyer to plead before the Supreme Court of West
  Tennessee, and he was appointed assistant
  attorney general of Memphis in 1878.
• d

• The year after his term in the General
  Assembly ended, he represented activist Ida
  B. Wells in a discrimination lawsuit against a
  railroad company. In 1888 he served as a
  Republican Presidential elector.
• Cassels continued to work as an attorney
  until his death from tuberculosis in Memphis in
  1906.

14
Isaac F. Norris

• Isaac F. Norris
• ca. 1850 ca. 1910
• A grocer and businessman (coal wood),
• he was elected as a Republican
• to represent Shelby County
• in the 42nd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1881-1882.
• Convinced to run the following year
• on the Democratic ticket with
• Gen. William B. Bate,
• Norris was defeated,
• although Governor Bate and others on
• the ticket won easily.

15
Isaac F. Norris, p. 2

• Although it is known that Norris accumulated
  a considerable amount of personal wealth in his
  lifetime, probably from his successful coal and
  wood business, little else is known about his
  life. He was one of Memphiss elite African
  American group who saw several of their number

• elected to offices ranging from coal
  inspector to assistant attorney general during
  the 1870s and 1880s. During the election of
  1882 the Democrats, who had persuaded Norris to
  join their ticket, referred to him in several
  news stories as a man of fine practical sense
  and good judgment.

16
On March 30, 1881, Rep. Isaac Norris introduced
House Bill No. 682, To prevent racial
discrimination by railroad companies among their
passengers who are charged and pay first class
fare, and fixing penalty for same. The bill
passed its first and second readings, but it was
apparently tabled in committee and did not come
forward for a third and final reading. This was
one of the earliest bills to make an effort to
repeal Chapter 130 of the Acts of 1875.
17
Thomas A. Sykes

• Thomas A. Sykes
• ca. 1835 ca. 1900
• A former member of the
• North Carolina Legislature,
• a gauger at the Customs House,
• and owner of
• a Nashville furniture store,
• he was elected
• to represent Davidson County
• in the 42nd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1881-1882.
• ..

18
Thomas A. Sykes, p. 2

• The 1870 census for North Carolina,
  which indicated that Sykes could not read or
  write, showed that he and his wife Martha had
  three young daughters and listed his occupation
  as Representative.
• During the 1870s and 1880s Sykes joined
  city councilman James C. Napier

• and others in a reform movement against Mayor
  Thomas A. Kerchevals political machine. They
  made significant progress in moving African
  Americans into city jobs as captain of a Negro
  fire company, boss of a street construction crew,
  bridge watchmen, and public works employees.

19
Thomas A. Sykes, p. 3

• Although a total of 12 black
  legislators served in the General Assembly in the
  1880s, by the end of the decade there were none.
  Thomas Sykes was not re-elected after his term
  ended in 1882, and his career after that point
  serves as a poignant example of the effects of
  the Jim Crow laws on black Southerners.
• In 1885 Thomas Sykes had owned a thriving
  dry goods store, Sykes, Harris, and Company.
  However, by 1890, the first term in a decade in
  which there were no African Americans seated in
  the Tennessee legislature, Thomas Sykes was
  working as an elevator operator at the United
  States Customs House.

20
Leon Howard

• Leon Howard
• ca. 1850 ca. 1910
• A hotel porter and janitor, he was
• elected to represent Shelby County
• for one term as a Republican
• in the 43rd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1883-1884.
• .
• .

21
Leon Howard, p. 2

• Very little is known about the life of Leon
  (or Leonard) Howard. When he unexpectedly
  defeated two other African American candidates,
  Norris and Price, who had been persuaded to run
  as Democrats in the 1882 election, Memphiss
  newspapers, strongly Democratic (most had
  scarcely mentioned Howard during the campaign)
  patronizingly referred to him as a very
  respectable representative of his race.

• Howard introduced several bills in the
  legislature. One, requested by Governor Bate,
  would create the position of Assistant
  Super-intendent of Public Instruction to oversee
  the education of African American students.
  Another was a bill to end racial discrimination
  on public transportation and facilities. A
  third bill legislated punishment for white men
  who raped black women. All Howards bills were
  tabled or defeated.

22
Rep. Leon Howard brought this bill, HB 493, on
February 15, 1883. It was a response to
Governor Bates request that the General Assembly
approve the appointment of an Assistant State
Superintendent of Public Instruction to oversee
schools for African American students. The bill
passed its first and second readings and was
referred to the Committee on Education and Common
Schools but did not pass out of committee.
Howard made a second attempt to introduce this
legislation in a special House session later in
the same year, but the bill again failed.
23
Samuel Allen McElwee

• Samuel A. McElwee
• ca. 1857 October 21, 1914
• Scholar, teacher, storekeeper,
• and newspaperman, he was elected
• to represent Haywood County
• in the 43rd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1883-1884,
• while still a student at Fisk University.
• f
• Re-elected to the 44th (1885-1886) and
  45th (1887-1888) General Assemblies
• Earned a law degree from Central Tennessee
  College in 1886, during his second term
• The first African American to serve three
  terms in the legislature
• The first African American nominated as Speaker
  of the House.
• ..

24
Samuel A. McElwee, p. 2

• Samuel A. McElwee was born a slave in
  Madison County. After emancipation his family
  moved to a farm in neighboring Haywood County,
  where young McElwee attended Freedmens Bureau
  Schools part of the year. Having been taught to
  read by his former masters children, he moved
  quickly through school, even though he had to
  devote much of the year to farm work. By 16 he
  was a teacher himself, and at 18 he attended
  Oberlin College for a year, paying his way by
  washing windows, waiting tables, and picking
  fruit.

• Supporting himself by teaching and peddling
  Bibles and patent medicines, he studied German,
  Latin, and mathematics with a Vanderbilt student
  whose strong recommendation earned him a Peabody
  scholarship to Fisk University. In 1882, while
  still a student, he was elected to the General
  Assembly from Haywood County. Although his wife
  died in 1885, leaving him with two small
  children, he nevertheless served two more terms
  in the state legislature, earning a law degree
  (1886) from Central Tennessee College during his
  second term.

25
Samuel A. McElwee, p. 3

• During his second legislative term,
  the 26-year-old McElwee was nominated by former
  U.S. Senator Roderick R. Butler to be Speaker of
  the House of Representatives, and he received 32
  of the 93 votes cast. He was also the first
  African American Tennessean elected to a third
  legislative term. It was during this term that
  McElwee delivered a passionate oration in the
  House of Representatives pleading for stronger
  statutory sanctions against lynch mobs. His
  speech, which referred to three recent Tennessee
  lynchings, included these words Great God, when
  will this Nation treat the Negro as an American
  citizen? ... As a humble representative of the
  Negro race, and as a member of this body, I stand
  here to-day and wave the flag of truce between
  the races and demand a reformation in southern
  society by the passage of this bill. Despite
  his eloquence, the bill was tabled by a vote of
  4136.

26
The cover and first page of Samuel A. McElwees
bill, HB 526 (1883) to ensure more fair jury
selection. The bill was tabled by the Judiciary
Committee.
27
Samuel A. McElwee, p. 5

• By 1888, as he campaigned for a fourth term,
  Samuel McElwee had gained a national reputation.
  He had spoken at the Tuskegee Institute and other
  educational institutions he had chaired the
  Tennessee Republican Convention and had
  represented the state at the National Republican
  Convention in Chicago, where he would
  successfully persuade presidential candidate
  Benjamin Harrison to give greater attention to
  civil rights issues.
• At the same time, however, white separatists
  in Haywood County were conspiring to get rid of
  McElwee. As armed patrols terrorized African
  American neighborhoods and blocked the ballot
  boxes, fearful black voters stayed away from the
  polls. In spite of lawsuits brought later by
  federal election officials, those responsible for
  the fraud, who made no secret of the fact that
  they had deliberately miscounted votes, were
  never punished. That years General Assembly,
  which had no black members, quickly passed a
  series of laws intended to disfranchise African
  American voters.
• McElwee and his family fled Haywood County,
  barely escaping with their lives. For several
  years they lived in Nashville, where the former
  legislator established both a popular newspaper
  and a successful law practice. The family later
  moved north to Chicago. McElwee spent his final
  years there as the head of a prosperous law firm.
  

28
David F. Rivers

• David Foote Rivers
• July 18, 1859 July 5, 1941
• A Peabody Scholarship student at
• Roger Williams University
• at the time of his election,
• he represented Fayette County
• as a Republican in the 43rd Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1883-1884.
• Rivers was re-elected to the 44th
• General Assembly but never took his
• seat, having been driven out of
• Fayette County by racial violence.
• .
• .
• .

David F. Rivers, about 1930
29
David F. Rivers, p. 2

• David Rivers was born in Montgomery, Alabama,
  to Edmonia Rivers, a free woman of color, and an
  unknown father. He was listed in the 1870 census
  as living in his grandfathers Somerville, TN,
  household, along with two younger brothers and
  an assortment of relatives and boarders. Rivers
  did not learn to write until he was 19, when he
  first attended high school,

• probably in Fayette County. He was so
  successful in his studies that he was invited to
  attend Roger Williams University, Nashville, on a
  Peabody Scholarship. He was studying for a
  degree in theology there when he was elected to
  the Tennessee legislature. A challenge to his
  eligibility, based on his periodic absences from
  his home county to attend college, was
  unsuccessful.

30
David F. Rivers, p. 3

• Although elected to the General Assembly for
  a second term in 1885-1886, Rivers never took his
  seat, having been driven out of Fayette County by
  what his son Francis referred to as a large body
  of racially prejudiced whites. However, having
  earned his degree in theology from Roger Williams
  University, he stayed on and taught there for two
  years, then preached at the Fifth Ward Baptist
  Church in Clarksville for some time. In 1893 he
  moved his family to Kansas City, Kansas, where he
  became pastor of the Metropolitan Baptist Church.
• In 1898 David F. Rivers was invited to
  Washington, D.C., to accept a post as pastor of
  the Berean Baptist Church, which he served for 46
  years, until his death in 1941. His son Francis,
  equally distinguished, was a member of the NY
  General Assembly, Assistant District Attorney in
  New York County, and Justice of the City Court of
  New York.

31
44th General Assembly, 1885-86
32
Greene E. Evans

• Greene E. Evans
• Sept. 19, 1848 Oct. 1, 1914
• A well-educated businessman
• and former teacher,
• he was elected as a Republican
• to the 44th Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1885-1886.
• A member of the original Fisk
• Jubilee Singers, he took part in their
• first U.S. concert tour
• in 1871-1872.
• .
• .

33
Greene E. Evans, p. 2

• Green E. Evans was born into slavery in
  Fayette County. He escaped from his master to
  become the servant of a Yankee officer in
  Alabama, moving to Indianapolis after the Civil
  War where he paid a man part of his 10-a-week
  salary to teach him to read. He hauled gravel and
  sod to pay his way through college, teaching
  during the summer in a school building he had
  built with his own hands.

• At twenty he entered Fisk University, where
  he was a member of the original Fisk Jubilee
  Singers, who sang before President Grant in the
  White House. After graduating, Evans worked in
  the wholesale coal and wood business and as a
  mail agent and deputy wharf-master at Memphis.
  Active in Republican party politics, he received
  the partys nomination to run for the General
  Assembly in 1884.

34
The first Fisk Jubilee Singers. Greene Evans is
seated second from left.
35
Greene E. Evans, p. 3

• During his legislative term Evans introduced
  bills to repeal Chapter 130 of the Acts of 1875,
  to amend the public road law in order to allow
  for fair employment of African American workers,
  and, supporting a request by the governor, to
  provide for an Assistant Superintendent of Public
  Instruction to oversee the education of black
  students. None of Evanss bills passed into law.
• The 1900 Census shows him, now 51, living
  with his wife Anna in Chicago, Illinois. The
  entry lists his occupation as coal dealer. He
  died in Chicago on October 1, 1914, at the age of
  64.

36
William A. Fields

• William A. Fields
• ca. 1852 unknown
• A farmer and a school teacher,
• he was elected as a Republican
• to represent Shelby County
• in the 44th Tennessee
• General Assembly,
• 1885-1886.
• .
• .

37
William A. Fields, p. 2

• Very little is known about Fields early
  life. In the 1880 census, nearly five years
  before his election to the legislature, he was
  listed as a laborer, boarding with the Williams
  family on 2nd Street in Memphis. He and his wife
  Elizabeth were the parents of three children. He
  was a farmer and school teacher in the Fifth
  District of Shelby County at the time he was
  elected to the Tennessee General Assembly. There
  he introduced a number of bills opposing
  discrimination in public facilities, and
  supporting compulsory school attendance, fair
  labor contracts, and the licensure of insurance
  companies.

38
William C. Hodge

• William C. Hodge
• ca. 1846 ca. 1900
• A man who held many jobs,
• including railroad agent and jailer,
• he was elected
• to represent Hamilton County
• in the 44th Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1885-1886.
• He served as a member of the
• Chattanooga city council for many years.
• .
• .

39
William C. Hodge, p. 2

• Born in North Carolina, Hodge held a number of
  jobs before he became a legislator contractor,
  stone-cutter, house mover, night mail transfer
  agent at the railroad depot, alderman for the 4th
  Ward of Chattanooga, and city jailer.
• During his legislative term he introduced
  bills to safeguard employment and voting rights
  for all Tennesseans, and to overturn Chapter 130
  of the Acts of 1875, which permitted
  discrimination on public transportation and in
  hotels and places of public amusement. All were
  tabled or rejected.

• Hodge was a legislative candidate in 1884, a
  year when Tennessees Republicans had declared
  themselves opposed to black candidates. He vowed
  it was time for white voters to get educated up
  and allow blacks to hold responsible positions.
  Black leaders reminded Chattanooga Republican
  office holders that the African American voters
  were keeping them in office (Hamilton County
  black voters outnumbered whites more than 3-1)
  and gently suggested that a little reciprocity
  would go a long way . . . Hodge subsequently
  became the countys first black representative.

40
45th General Assembly, 1887-88
41
Monroe W. Gooden

• Monroe W. Gooden
• 10 May 1848 19 January 1915
• The only African American Democrat
• in the Tennessee legislature
• in the 19th Century,
• he was elected
• to represent Fayette County
• in the 45th Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1887-1888
• .
• .

42
Monroe W. Gooden, p. 2

• A farmer and cotton ginner near Somerville,
  Tennessee, Gooden and his wife Anne Baskeville
  were the parents of seven children. He was a
  deacon in the Baptist church and a member of the
  Masonic order. (Black Freemasons groups have
  existed in the United States since 1775, and the
  number of black lodges increased significantly
  after the Civil War.)
• Appointed to legislative committees on
  Agriculture and Federal Relations, Gooden
  introduced a bill to ensure the honest counting
  of ballots, out of the presence of the
  candidates, but it was tabled by the Judiciary
  Committee.

• One of the few African American Democrats
  in Tennessee during the 1880s, and the only one
  to serve a term in the legislature, Gooden was
  the second man to represent Fayette County,
  following Republican David F. Rivers, who served
  in the 43rd General Assembly. From 1830 to 1980
  the population of Fayette County consisted of
  many more African Americans than whites (by 1865
  the ratio was two to one), yet only these two
  black legislators were ever elected to represent
  the county.

43
Styles L. Hutchins

• Styles Linton Hutchins
• 21 November 1852 7 September 1950
• A Chattanooga attorney, he was
• elected to represent Hamilton County
• in the 45th Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1887-1888
• Styles Hutchins, Monroe Gooden,
• and Samuel McElwee were
• the last African Americans
• to serve in the General Assembly until
• Representative A. W Willis, Jr.,
• was elected in Shelby County in 1964.
• ...
• .

44
Styles L. Hutchins, p. 2

• Styles Linton Hutchins was born in
  Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 1852. The son of a
  wealthy artist, he was one of the first black
  graduates of Atlanta University (1875). A year
  later he earned a law degree from the University
  of South Carolina Law School and was admitted to
  the South Carolina bar. He served as a
  Republican state judge, resigning with the
  Democrats return to power.

• Returning to Georgia to open a law practice,
  Hutchins over-came opposition from the
  legislature to become the first African American
  attorney admitted to the Georgia bar.
• In 1881 he opened a law practice in
  Chattanooga, also taking on the editorship of The
  Independent Age, a popular black newspaper. A
  valiant spokesman for civil rights, he ran for
  the legislature in 1886, winning by eight votes!

45
Styles L. Hutchins, p. 3

• Tireless in his role as legislator, Hutchins
  served on the Education and New Counties
  committees and was successful in passing laws to
  repeal poll taxes in Chattanooga and to prevent
  criminals from other states from testifying in
  Tennessee courts. His bill to limit the use of
  convict labor was not successful.
• After his legislative term, Hutchins
  returned to his law practice, held a patronage
  position in the revenue department of the U.S.
  Treasury, and became deeply involved in church
  work. He was known throughout Tennessee and
  Georgia as a fiery preacher who often used his
  sermons to denounce racism in the South.

46
Legislator and attorney Styles L. Hutchins
introduced HB 447 on February 12, 1887, in an
attempt to better regulate the work and
confinement of convicts. Referred to the
Committee on Penitentiary after its second
reading, the bill was tabled in committee.
47
Styles L. Hutchins, p. 5

• In 1906 Hutchins was involved in one of the
  most famous lynching cases in history. Hired to
  appeal the rape conviction of a black man named
  Ed Johnson, Hutchins and his law partner Noah W.
  Parden carried the appeal to the Supreme Court,
  who agreed to hear it and issued a stay of
  execution. That very night, a mob broke into the
  Hamilton County jail, dragged Johnson out and
  hanged him from a bridge.
• Hutchins and Parden immediately urged federal
  officials to file suit against the sheriff and
  the mob. In a precedent-setting case, the
  Supreme Court found Sheriff Shipp and others
  guilty. After serving only a brief sentence,
  however, Shipp returned home to a heros welcome,
  while Hutchins and Parden were forced to leave
  town for their own safety. In 1910 Hutchins was
  practicing law in Peoria, Illinois, but the 1920
  Census lists him as the owner and operator of a
  barber shop in Illinois. He died in Mattoon,
  Illinois, in 1950 . . . at the age of 98!

48
Jesse M. H. Graham

• Jesse M. H. Graham
• 8 February 1860 25 July 1930
• A Republican newspaper editor,
• elected to represent
• Montgomery County
• in the 50th Tennessee
• General Assembly, 1897-1898
• A challenge of his eligibility to hold
• the office was successful,
• and the House of Representatives
• declared his seat vacant
• on 20 January 1897.
• .

This portrait of Jesse Graham appeared in the
Louisville Courier Journal on November 15, 1896
49
Jesse M. H. Graham, p. 2

• In 1896 he became the first black legislator
  elected in ten years, but an opponent filed a
  protest regarding Grahams eligibility to hold
  the seat because of a period of absence from his
  home county. He was provisionally seated on Jan.
  4, 1897, while the Committee on Elections debated
  the issue. When the committee declared both
  Graham and his opponent ineligible, the General
  Assembly passed a resolution declaring the seat
  vacant.

• Jesse M. H. Graham attended public schools
  in Montgomery and Davidson counties. In 1881 he
  won a Peabody Scholarship to attend Fisk
  University, where he took courses in English and
  education. After teaching school in Kentucky for
  a time, he worked as a postal clerk in
  Louisville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee.
  In 1895 he was named editor of the Clarksville
  Enterprise, an African American newspaper.

50
Jesse M. H. Graham, p. 3

• Making his home once again in Clarksville,
  Graham served as an officer of St. Peters
  African Methodist Episcopal Church there and
  helped to found American Legion Post No. 143.
• d
• Before WWI he was a clerk in the U.S. Bureau
  of Audit and spent some time working in the
  Philippines. He later took a position with the
  Federal Government in Washington, D.C., where he
  was residing at the time of the 1930 Census.

• During the first World War the U.S. Army
  commissioned more than 1,200 African American
  officers. The only training camp set up
  exclusively for black officers was in Fort Des
  Moines, Iowa. Jesse Graham was one of the 638
  officers who graduated from officers training in
  that program. Commissioned as a second
  lieutenant in the Army on October 15, 1917,
  Graham was assigned to the 317th Engineers.
  Honorably discharged at wars end, he returned to
  Tennessee.

51
Sampson W. Keebles monument in Greenwood
Cemetery, Nashville
52
Produced at the Tennessee State Library and
Archives

• by Kathy B. Lauder, Archival Technical Services,
  
• with the generous assistance of
• Dr. Tommie Brown, State Representative,
  District 28
• Riley Darnell, Tennessee Secretary of State
• Irene Griffey, Certified Genealogist
• Dr. Robert E. Hunt, Department of History,
  MTSU
• Karina McDaniel, State Photographer,
  Preservation Services, TSLA