February marks Black History Month. Follow the AJC this month for a series of short stories and videos and people, places and events that played a significant role in the development of black people in America.
No. 3
Jefferson Long: Born March 3, 1836 to a slave mother in tiny Knoxville, Ga. Jefferson Long rose from a slave who taught himself to read to a successful Macon tailor to the first black man in Georgia to be elected to the state House of Representatives.
Long was in the first class of black elected officials who came to brief power during Reconstruction. When he was sworn in on Jan. 16, 1871, he was only the second African-American elected official in the country. He spent only three months in office (the shortest term by a black House member), but was the first African-American to speak on the House Floor, when he lobbied against the Amnesty Bill, which restored political rights to former Confederates.
According to the U.S. House of Representatives archives, Long pleaded with his colleagues to acknowledge the atrocities being committed by white supremacists in Georgia. “Do we, then, really propose here today, when loyal men dare not carry the ‘stars and stripes’ through our streets, to relieve from political disability the very men who have committed these Ku Klux outrages? I think that I am doing my duty to my constituents and my duty to my country when I vote against such a proposition.”
After Long was voted out of office, it would take a full century (Andrew Young in 1972) for Georgia to elect another black congressman. Today, Georgia has four, John Lewis, Hank Johnson, David Scott and Sanford Bishop. There has never been a black senator out of Georgia.
