John Willis Menard

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John Willis Menard (1838-1893) was the first African-American elected to the United States Congress.

In 1868, Menard was elected to represent Louisiana in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, he was denied his seat after an election challenge by the loser.

Menard was born on April 3, 1838 in Kaskaskia, Illinois to French Creole parents and one of his ancestors was Michel Branamour Menard, a French fur trader and a founder of Galveston, Texas. John Menard attended school in Sparta, Illinois and Iberia College, Ohio. Menard moved to Florida, where he served in the Florida State House of Representatives in 1874, and where he was elected as justice of the peace for Duval County, in 1874 and again in 1877.

He was a poet, and the author of Lays in Summer Lands (1879). Menard was also the editor of the Florida News and the Southern Leader from 1882 to 1888. He died on October 8, 1893 in Washington, D.C.. His daughter, Alice Menard married Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs, the son of Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs.

[edit] References

• A Brief Biography of John Willis Menard from Southern University's John B. Cade Library
• Canter Brown, Jr. Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867-1924. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1998.
• Menard, John Willis. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 19, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9051962