Joseph Hayne Rainey | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rainey,c. 1865–1880 | |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromSouth Carolina's1st district | |
| In office December 12, 1870 – March 3, 1879 | |
| Preceded by | Benjamin F. Whittemore |
| Succeeded by | John S. Richardson |
| Member of theSouth Carolina Senate fromGeorgetown County | |
| In office November 24, 1868 – November 28, 1870 | |
| Preceded by | Richard Dozier |
| Succeeded by | John Francis Beckman |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1832-06-21)June 21, 1832 Georgetown, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | August 1, 1887(1887-08-01) (aged 55) Georgetown, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Profession | Barber,politician,banker |
Joseph Hayne Rainey (June 21, 1832 – August 1, 1887) was an American politician. He was the firstblack person to serve in theUnited States House of Representatives and the second black person (afterHiram Revels) to serve in theUnited States Congress. His service included time as presiding officer of the House of Representatives.
Born into a family of farmers and planters, Rainey was a member of theRepublican Party.
Joseph Hayne Rainey was born in 1832 inGeorgetown, South Carolina.[1] His mother Grace was of Indigenous andFrench descent.[2] His father Edward Rainey had been allowed by his master to work independently to earn money and develop a successful business as abarber. He paid a portion of his income to his master as required by law. Edward saved a substantial sum, and by the 1840s, he purchased his freedom and that of his wife and two sons.[2] With opportunities for education severely limited for black people, Rainey followed his father into the barber's profession as an adult. It was an independent and well-respected trade that enabled him to build a wide social network in his community. By 1850, Edward Rainey had purchased a slave himself. By 1860, he had purchased more slaves, most likely working in his barbershop, along with Joseph.[3]
In 1859, Rainey traveled toPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, where he met and married Susan, a free woman of color from theWest Indies, who was also of African-French descent. They returned to South Carolina, where their three children were born: Joseph II, Herbert and Olivia.[2]
In 1861, with the outbreak of theAmerican Civil War, Rainey was among the free black people who were conscripted by theConfederates to work on fortifications inCharleston, South Carolina. He also worked as a cook and laborer onblockade runner ships.
In 1862, Rainey and his family escaped to the BritishImperial fortresscolony ofBermuda, 640 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. They settled in the town ofSt. George's, Bermuda (from which Charleston and South Carolina had been founded in 1669 underGovernorWilliam Sayle). There, Rainey worked as a barber. His shop was accessed from Barber's Alley and was located in the cellar of the "Tucker House", the building on the corner of Water Street and Barber's Alley that had previously been the home ofCouncil President and sometimes acting GovernorHenry Tucker of Bermuda.[4] His wife, on the other hand, became a successful dressmaker with her own shop. In 1865, the couple moved to the town ofHamilton, Bermuda, when an outbreak ofyellow fever threatened St. George's. Rainey worked at theHamilton Hotel as a barber and a bartender, where his customers were mostly white. He became a respected member of the community and he and his wife earned a prosperous living in Bermuda. Bermuda, which had maintained close links with the former colonies in the South of the United States since the 17th Century, profited immensely from the war as the major point from which British and European manufactured weapons and supplies were trans-shipped by Confederateblockade runners into Charleston and other Southern ports, and Bermudian seamen, likeThomas Leslie Outerbridge, crewed blockade runners smuggling arms to the blockaded South. Not all Bermudians supported the Confederates, however. Black Bermudianstevedores brawled with Confederate sailors,[5] and cargoes of Confederate cotton were burnt by arsonists on the docks of St. George's.[6] Many black and white Bermudians fought for the Union, mostly in the U.S. Navy. Those who served in the U.S. Army included First SergeantRobert John Simmons, who served in the54th Massachusetts Volunteer InfantryRegiment and died in August 1863 as a result of wounds received in an attack on Fort Wagner, nearCharleston, South Carolina, Robert Tappin (who had previously served in the U.S. Navy from 1863 to 1864), John Wilson and Joseph Thomas of the31st Colored Infantry Regiment, John Thompson of the26th Colored Infantry, Wate O. Harris, of the6th Coloured Infantry, and George Smith.[7][8][9]
In 1866, following the end of the U.S. Civil War, Rainey and his family returned toSouth Carolina, where they settled in Charleston. In 1870, 43 percent of the city's population was African American, including many people of color who, like Rainey, had been free and held skilled jobs before the war. His experience and wealth helped establish him as a leader and he quickly became involved in politics, joining the executive committee of the stateRepublican Party. In 1868, he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention.
In 1870, Rainey was elected to theSouth Carolina Senate and became chair of the Finance Committee. He served only a short time as that year he won a special election as a Republican to fill a vacancy in the41st United States Congress. This vacancy had been created when the House refused to seatBenjamin F. Whittemore, the incumbent. He had beencensured by the House for corruption but re-elected.
Rainey was seated December 12, 1870 and was re-elected to Congress, serving a total of four terms. Serving until March 3, 1879, he established a record of length of service for a black Congressman that was not surpassed until that ofWilliam L. Dawson of Chicago in the 1950s. He supported legislation that became known as theEnforcement Acts, to suppress the violent activities of theKu Klux Klan. This helped for a time, before whiteinsurgents developed other paramilitary groups in the South, such as theWhite League and theRed Shirts.
Rainey made three speeches on the floor of Congress in support of what was finally passed as theCivil Rights Act of 1875. In 1873, he said he was not seeking 'social equality' and was content to choose his own circle.
He went on to say,
But we do want a law enacted that we may be recognized like other men in the country. Why is it that colored members of Congress cannot enjoy the same immunities that are accorded to white members? Why cannot we stop at hotels here without meeting objection? Why cannot we go into restaurants without being insulted? We are here enacting laws for the country and casting votes upon important questions; we have been sent here by the suffrages of the people, and why cannot we enjoy the same benefits that are accorded to our white colleagues on this floor?[10]
With violence against black people increasing in the South, in 1874 Rainey purchased a "summer home" inWindsor, Connecticut. As a U.S. representative from South Carolina, Rainey could not use Windsor as his primary residence, but he moved his family there for their safety. While visiting, he became an active member of theFirst Church of Windsor. The "Joseph H. Rainey House", ac. 1830Greek Revival, is located at 299 Palisado Avenue (it is used as a private residence). It was designated as one of 130 stops on the Connecticut Freedom Trail, established in 1996 to highlight the achievements of African Americans in gaining freedom and civil rights.
He also worked to promote the Southern economy. In May 1874, Rainey became the first African American to preside over the House of Representatives asSpeaker pro tempore.[11]
In the closing hours of Congress in 1878, Rainey was one of the few sober members present. He acted to ensure the passage of an $18 million civil service appropriation bill that would not have been passed without his firm presence.[12]
Beginning in 1874,paramilitary terrorist groups such as theRed Shirts in North and South Carolina and Louisiana had acted openly as the military arm of the Democratic Party to suppress black voting. In July 1876, six black people were murdered in theHamburg Massacre and, in October, between 25 and 100 were killed by white paramilitary groups in several days of violence inEllenton, both in contestedAiken County, South Carolina.[13]
In 1876, Rainey won re-election from the Charleston district againstDemocratic candidateJohn Smythe Richardson. Richardson challenged the result as invalid on the grounds of intimidation of Democrats by federal soldiers and blackmilitias guarding the polls, but Rainey retained his seat. The 1876 election was marked by widespread fraud in the state. For instance, votes counted in the uplandEdgefield County for the Democratic gubernatorial candidateWade Hampton III exceeded by 2,000 the total number of registered voters in the county; similar results were counted inLaurens County.[14] That year Democrats ultimately took control of the state government, and the next year the federal government withdrew its troops from the South as part of a national compromise; Reconstruction was ended.
In mid-1878, Rainey warned President Hayes of increasing violence and rhetoric meant to limit the African-American vote in South Carolina.[15]
In 1878, Rainey was defeated in a second contest with Richardson, although black men continued to be elected for numerous local offices through much of the 19th century. White Democrats used their dominance of the state legislature to pass laws forsegregation,Jim Crow and making voter registration more difficult, effectively disenfranchising black people. In 1895, they passed a new state constitution, that completed thedisenfranchisement of most black people, stripping them of political power and excluding them from the political process for the next several decades into the 1960s.
After leaving the U.S. Congress, Rainey was appointed as a federal agent of the US Treasury Department for internal revenue in South Carolina. He held this position for two years, after which he began a career in private commerce. He worked in brokerage and banking in Washington, DC for five years.
Rainey retired in 1886 and returned to South Carolina. At the age of 55, he contracted malaria and died less than a year later, in August 1887[16] in Georgetown, the city of his birth.
In 2018, the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, a post-partisan, 501(c)3 think-tank was founded by Sarah E. Hunt and Bishop Garrison with the goal of empowering the voices of women, minorities and mavericks in public policy.[17]
...and the result has been an unmistakable ill-feeling between the employers and the employed—a feeling which has received some accession of acrimony as far as the clannism of white and coloured is concerned—by some fierce contests between seamen from the ships in port and coloured people. As an instance we may record the case of a young man belonging to one of the steamers, who very foolishly brought a revolver on shore with him one evening, and who was set upon by coloured people and severely beaten—took to the water and swam, as he thought for his life, towards his ship, was pursued, dragged out of the water, taken on shore and again brutally beaten. – In this state of feeling the fires on Wednesday occurred...
...On Wednesday last two fires of a most alarming character broke out successively in the Town of St. Georges, and, partly from their intrinsically formidable character and partly from concurrent circumstances in a separate article as most convenient for our readers, we propose to give a simple narrative of the facts. The first broke out about midday among the cotton bales on Mr. Penno's wharf. It should be premised that the whole of the extensive wharf that lies between the stores and the harbour was covered with some hundreds of cotton bales piled tier above tier and divided into three large sections corresponding to the divisions of the building and—most fortunately as it turned out—with a clear gangway five feet wide between the piles and the wall of the building. The fire broke out in the easternmost of the three piles and was first observed by Mr. Tudor Tucker who, in the discharge of his official duties, was sitting on a platform leading to the upper story of the building overlooking the whole wharf....
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromSouth Carolina's 1st congressional district 1870–1879 | Succeeded by |
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