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John R Lynch Biography & Facts

John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 – November 2, 1939) was an American writer, attorney, military officer, author, and Republican politician who served as Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and represented Mississippi in the United States House of Representatives. Lynch was born into slavery in Louisiana and became free in 1863 under the Emancipation Proclamation. During Reconstruction, Lynch became a prominent political leader in Mississippi. In 1873, Lynch was elected as the first African-American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives; he is considered the first Black man to hold this position in any state. He was among the first generation of African Americans from the South elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the 44th, 45th, and 47th Congresses. In 1884, he was elected temporary chair of the Republican National Convention and delivered the convention's keynote address. After Democrats regained power in the Mississippi legislature, they disenfranchised much of the majority-black electorate by raising barriers to voter registration. Lynch then studied law and was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1896. Seeing the effects of disenfranchisement, Lynch left the state and returned to Washington, D.C. to practice law. He served in the United States Army during the Spanish–American War and for a decade into the early 1900s, achieving the rank of major. After retiring, Lynch moved to Chicago, where he lived for more than two decades and was active in law and real estate. Beginning with the end of federal Reconstruction in 1877, Lynch wrote and published four books analyzing the political situation in the South. The best known of these is The Facts of Reconstruction (1913), which argued against the prevailing view of the Dunning School, conservative white historians who downplayed African-American contributions and the achievements of the Reconstruction era. Early life and education John R. Lynch was born into slavery in 1847 on Tacony Plantation near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, Louisiana. He was the third son of his mother Catherine White, who was enslaved. She had four boys in total. Born in Virginia, she was of mixed race, as were both of her parents, Robert and Elizabeth White. Under slavery law, the children of slave mothers were slaves, regardless of paternity. John's father Patrick Lynch was the overseer on the plantation; he had a common-law marriage with Catherine White. A young immigrant, Patrick Lynch had come to the United States with his family from Dublin, Ireland. They settled in Zanesville, Ohio. As young men, Patrick and his older brother Edward Lynch moved South; Patrick became an overseer at the Tacony Plantation. There he fell in love with Catherine and they became a couple, living together as man and wife. (They were prohibited from marrying by state law.) To protect his family, Patrick Lynch planned to buy Catherine and their mixed-race sons from the Tacony Plantation owner. Before the transaction was completed, a new owner bought the plantation and hired a different manager. Lynch could no longer afford to post the $1,000 bond required by the legislature for each person in his family in order to free them. (The state legislature was trying to reduce the number of free people of color, and it severely restricted the number of manumissions, ending approval altogether in 1852.) In addition, he would have to submit a request for these manumissions to an Emancipation Court. Lynch planned to move with his family to New Orleans, where his brother Edward lived, and try to save money there to secure his family's freedom. He thought the city would be a good place to live, as he had learned that it had a large population of free people of color. Many had achieved some education and economic status. Lynch died in 1849 of illness before carrying out his plan. Before his death, Patrick Lynch arranged for his friend, William G. Deal, to take title of Catherine, William and John, with the understanding that this was a legality to protect the family, who continued to work at Tacony plantation. But after a time, Deal sold them to Alfred Vidal Davis, a planter in Natchez, Mississippi. When she met Davis, Catherine was shocked to learn of the sale. She told him her family's story. Davis offered to keep her and her two sons with her (one had died by this time), and to have her work in his household. He also allowed her to hire out and save some of the money she earned. He mostly kept his word, but Catherine and her two sons did not gain freedom until 1863, under the Emancipation Proclamation. Because of an argument with Mrs. Davis, the boy John Lynch had been sent to field labor on the plantation. He was 16 when he and his family gained freedom. Lynch worked with elements of the Union Army in the Natchez area. After the Civil War ended in 1865, a friend of his father's arranged for him to work for a photographer. At the photographer's studio he met Robert H. Wood; Lynch and Wood would have a lifelong friendship, and Wood also went on to serve political office. Lynch took on increased responsibilities until he managed the entire operation and its finances. He built a successful business in Natchez. Wanting to continue his education, Lynch attended a night school taught by Northerners. (By the end of 1866, many such teachers were driven out of the state by whites' violent opposition to the education of freedmen.) Lynch also read widely in books and newspapers during lulls in his business day. As Lynch's business was near a white school, the young man often eavesdropped on lessons through the open windows. Career Lynch's leadership abilities were quickly recognized in Natchez, and he gained post-war political opportunities. He became active in the Republican Party by the age of 20. Although too young to participate as a delegate, he attended the state's constitutional convention of 1867, studying its developments closely. The first proposed constitution was defeated, largely because it required the temporary disenfranchisement of former Confederates, an unpopular proposal. In April 1869 at the age of 22, Lynch was appointed by the military governor, Adelbert Ames, as a Justice of the Peace in Natchez. Later that year Lynch was elected as a Republican to the Mississippi State House. He was re-elected, serving until 1873. In his last term, January 1872 he was elected as Speaker of the Mississippi House, the first African American to achieve that position. At the age of 26 in 1872, Lynch was elected as the youngest member of the US Congress from Mississippi's 6th congressional district, as part of the first generation of African-American Congressmen. (This district was created by the state legislature in 1870.) He was the only African American elected from Mississippi for a century. In 1874 Lynch was the only Republican in the Mississippi House delegation to be elected in the face of a Democratic campaign against Republ.... Discover the John R Lynch popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John R Lynch books.