Pioneers and Trailblazers

1868-1880        United States Senate

Hiram Rhodes Revels
(1822-1901)
Party: Republican
State: Mississippi
Term: 41st Congress (1870-1871)

Blanche K. Bruce
(1841-1881)
Party: Republican
State: Mississippi
Term: 44th-46th Congresses (1875-1881)

1868-1880        United States House of Representatives

John Willis Menard*
(1838-1893)
Party: Republican
District: Louisiana
Term: 40th Congress (1868)
*Elected to office, but not seated

Joseph H. Rainey
(1832-1887)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 41st-45th Congresses (1870-1879)

Jefferson F. Long
(1836-1901)
Party: Republican
State: Georgia
Term: 41st Congress (1870-1871)

Robert C. DeLarge
(1842-1874)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 42nd Congress (1871-1873)

Robert B. Elliott
(1842-1884)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 42nd-43rd Congresses (1871-1874)

Benjamin S. Turner
(1825-1894)
Party: Republican
State: Alabama
Term: 42nd Congress (1871-1873)

Josiah T. Walls
(1842-1905)
Party: Republican
State: Florida
Term: 42nd, 43rd and 44th Congresses
(1871-1873, 1873-1875 and 1875-1876)

Richard Harvey Cain
(1825-1887)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 43rd and 45th Congresses
(1873-1875 and 1877-1879)

John R. Lynch
(1847-1939)
Party: Republican
State: Mississippi
Term: 43rd-44th and 47th Congresses
(1873-1877 and 1882-1883)

James T. Rapier
(1837-1883)
Party: Republican
State: Alabama
Term: 43rd Congress (1873-1875)

Alonzo J. Ransier
(1834-1882)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 43rd Congress (1873-1875)

Jeremiah Haralson
(1846-1916)
Party: Republican
State: Alabama
Term: 44th Congress (1875-1877)

John Adams Hyman
(1840-1891)
Party: Republican
State: North Carolina
Term: 44th Congress (1875-1877)

Charles E. Nash
(1844-1913)
Party: Republican
State: Louisiana
Term: 44th Congress (1875-1877)

James E. O’Hara
(1844-1905)
Party: Republican
State: North Carolina
Term: 48th-49th Congresses (1883-1887)

Robert Smalls
(1839-1915)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 44th-45th, 47th and 48th-49th Congresses
(1875-1879, 1882-1883 and 1884-1887)

Henry P. Cheatham
(1857-1935)
Party: Republican
State: North Carolina
Term: 51st-52nd Congresses (1889-1893)

1880-1890        United States House of Representatives

John M. Langston
(1829-1897)
Party: Republican
State: Virginia
Term: 51st Congress (1890-1891)

Thomas E. Miller
(1849-1936)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 51st Congress (1890-1891)

George W. Murray
(1853-1926)
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 53rd-54th Congresses
(1983-1895 and 1896-1897)

1890-1900        United States House of Representatives

George H. White
(1852-1918)
Party: Republican
State: North Carolina
Term: 55th-58th Congresses (1897-1901)

1920-1930        United States House of Representatives

Oscar S. DePriest
(1871-1951)
Party: Republican
State: Illinois
Term: 71st-73rd Congresses (1929-1935)

1960-1970         United State Senate

Edward W. Brooke
(1919- )
Party: Republican
State: Massachusetts
Term: 90th-95th
Congresses (1967-1979)

1990-2000        United States House of Representatives

Gary A. Franks
(1953- )
Party: Republican
State: Connecticut
Term: 102nd-04th
Congresses (1991-1997)

J.C. Watts, Jr.
(1957- )
Party: Republican
State: Oklahoma
Term: 104th-07th
Congresses (1995-2003)

2010-2020          United States House of Representatives

Allen West
(1961- )
Party: Republican
State: Florida
Term: 112nd
Congress (2011-?)

Tim Scott
(1960- )
Party: Republican
State: South Carolina
Term: 112nd
Congress (2011-?)

First Black American to
Mississippi began his
service in the Senate on
February 25, 1870

Representative elected to
Congress Joseph Rainey
of South Carolina began
his service in the House
of Representatives on
December 12, 1870.

First African-American
Representative to Floor
Jefferson Long of
Georgia spoke on the
House Floor in 1871.

First African-American
Representative to
preside over a House
session Joseph Rainey of
South Carolina presided
over the House in 1874.

First African American to
chair a congressional
committee Blanche Bruce
of Mississippi became
chairman of Senate Select
Committee on the
Mississippi River in 1877.

First African American
popularly elected to the
Senate Edward Brooke of
Massachusetts was
elected to the Senate in
1966.

The
Frederick Douglass Foundation

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy
to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." - Frederick Douglass -

Lift Every Voice and Sing
By James Weldon Johnson

He was an American author, active
Republican, politician, diplomat, critic,
journalist, poet, anthologist, educator,
lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights
activist

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith
That the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope
That the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day
begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn
had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our
fathers sighed?
We have come over a way
That with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path
Through the blood of the
slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright
star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far
on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places,
Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk
With the wine of the world, we forget
Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land.

The History Behind the Words
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" (now also
known as "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing") was
publicly performed first as a poem as part
of a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday on
February 12, 1900 by 500 school children
at the segregated Stanton School. Its
principal, James Weldon Johnson, wrote
the words to introduce its honored guest
Booker T. Washington

The Core Pillars of the Foundation

"Devoted Christians - Proud Americans - Active Republicans"

WE BELIEVE IN THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE AND THE PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE