Talk:Joseph Rainey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Rainey is within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Congress, which collaborates on the United States Congress and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, visit the project page for more information.

[edit] first phrase of the article

I'm not sure I understand the first sentence in this article: first black man (shouldn't it be African American?) in the U.S. House of Representatives and the second black U.S. congressman. Isn't U.S. house of representatives and congress the same? Or was there an US senator of African American origin before him? Anyway, Joseph Rainey doesn't look very African American on the photo in the article. He could only have been part African American. --85.74.184.3 21:38, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Re: the Congressman issue. Perhaps this should be rephrased. The word "Congressman" is often used to mean a member of the House of Representatives, but "Congress" definitely includes the the U.S. Senate, as you suggest. The first black person in the U.S. Congress was Senator Hiram Revels, earlier the same year. - Nat Krause 00:54, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response

If you click on the word/link "black" in the first sentance, you'll get a full description of Wiki's approach to the word "black" vs. "African-American". "The House of Representatives is the larger of two houses that make up the U.S. Congress, the other being the United States Senate." (Wiki) However, I can't seem to find a reference to the first black in the Senate... He looks very African-American to me (a black person). However, the flashes they used in those days were *very* strong and often bleached out the true tone of skin for many people of color. Pictures taken outside and with great care sometimes revealed color, but that wasn't always the case.