John R. Lynch

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John Roy Lynch

For other persons named John Lynch, see John Lynch (disambiguation).

John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 - November 2, 1939) was the first African American Speaker of the House in Mississippi. He was also one of the first African American members of the U.S House of Representatives during the Reconstruction, the period in United States history after the Civil War.

1 Biography
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Lynch was born a slave near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, Louisiana. Lynch's father, Patrick, an immigrant from Ireland, was a planter near Vidalia. His mother, Catherine White, was a slave. After John's birth his father planned to move the family to New Orleans and free them. His father's fatal illness ended this plan. A friend, promising to free the family, took title of the Lynch's from Patrick. However, the promise was not kept, and the family was sold to a plantar in Natchez, Mississippi. He was held in slavery under the breakaway Confederate government in the southern part of the United States. According to historian Eric Foner, Lynch was freed by the United States Union Army in 1863 near the end of the Civil War.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Lynch learned the photography trade and managed a successful business in Natchez. Although the total of his formal education was only four months in night school, he educated himself by reading books and newspapers, and by secretly evesdropping on class lessons in a White school.

Lynch took advantage of the post-war political opportunities for Blacks, becoming first a Justice of Peace, and then a Mississippi State Representitive. He was only 26 when he was elected to congress. There, he continued to be an activist, introducing may bills and arguing on their behalf. Perhaps his greatest effort was in the long debate on the 1875 Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination in public accommodations.

The contesting of Lynch's third term election, in 1876, was typical of the political times. He was not allowed to take his seat, but he ran again in 1880. This election was also contested, and Lynch faught for a year before being seated. At this point, the next election was close, leaving little time to compaign. He lost the 1882 election by only 600 votes.

In 1884 Lynch got married. He and his wife, the former Ella Sommerville, had a daughter before their divorce. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, he was appointed Treasury Auditor and then Paymaster. In 1901, he began serving with the Regular Army with tours of duty in the United States, Cuba, and the Philippines.

Lynch retired from the Army in 1911, then married Cora Williams; and they moved to Chicago, where he practiced law and once again became involved in real estate. After his death in 1939, he was buried with military honors in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Part of his famous speech "They were faithful and true to you then; they are no less so today. And yet they ask no special favors as a class; they ask no special protection as a race. They feel that they purchased their inheritance, when upon the battlefields of this country, they watered the tree of liberty with the precious blood that flowed from their loyal veins. They ask no favors, they desire; and must have; an equal chance in the race of life."

According to Foner, Lynch "published a book, The Facts of Reconstruction, and several articles criticizing the then dominant Dunning School historiography" which presented the views of former slave owners and routinely showed the role of African Americans during Reconstruction in a false light. The Facts of Reconstruction is freely available online [1], courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. His book is a Primary Source in the study of Reconstruction.

Lynch died in Chicago at the age of 92 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

[edit] References

Bell, Frank C. The Life and Times of John R. Lynch: A Case Study 1847-1939 Journal of Mississippi History 38 (February 1976): 53-67.
Foner, Eric ed., Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction Revised Edition. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996). ISBN 0-8071-2082-0. John R. Lynch is profiled in this directory.
Franklin, John Hope. "Lynch, John Roy." In Dictionary of American Negro Biography, edited by Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, pp. 407-9. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1982.
Franklin, John Hope editor, Reminiscences of an Active Life: The Autobiography of John Roy Lynch (Chicago, 1970).
Franklin, John Hope. "John Roy Lynch: Republican Stalwart from Mississippi" in Howard Rabinowitz (ed) Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (Urbana, 1982) and reprinted in John Hope Franklin, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988 (Louisiana State University Press, 1989)
"John Roy Lynch" in Black Americans in Congress, 1870-1989. Prepared under the direction of the Commission on the Bicentenary by the Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1991.
Lynch, John Roy. Colored Americans: John R. Lynch's Appeal To Them. Milwaukee: Allied Printing, [1900?]
Lynch, John Roy. The Facts of Reconstruction. New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1913. Reprint, edited by William C. Harris, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., [1970].
Lynch, John Roy. The Late Election in Mississippi. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877.
Lynch, John Roy. Reminiscences of an Active Life. Edited and with an Introduction by John Hope Franklin. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Lynch, John Roy. Some Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes. Boston: The Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.
Mann, Kenneth Eugene. John Roy Lynch: U.S. Congressman from Mississippi Negro History Bulletin 37 (April/May 1974): 238-41.
*McLaughlin, James Harold. John R. Lynch, The Reconstruction Politician: A Historical Perspective. Ph.D. diss., Ball State University, 1981.
Schweninger, Loren, Black Property Owners in the South 1790-1915 (Urbana, Ill., 1990)
John R. Lynch, The Facts of Reconstruction (New York, 1913) [2]
Pittsburgh Courier Feb. 22, 1930.
DeSantis, Vincent P.Republican Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877-1897 (Baltimore, 1959)