Joseph Hayne Rainey

Background

Joseph Hayne Rainey was born on June 21, 1832 at Georgetown, South Carolina, the son of mulatto parents. His father was a barber who had bought the freedom of his family.

Education

He secured a limited education through private instruction.

Career

At the outbreak of the Civil War was practising the trade of his father in Charleston. For a time he served as a steward on a blockade runner, and in 1862, when the Confederate authorities drafted him to work on the fortifications of Charleston, he escaped to the West Indies. At the close of the war he returned to South Carolina where he emerged into political prominence in 1867 as a member of the executive committee of the newly formed Republican party in that state.

In the following year he was elected as a delegate from Georgetown to the state constitutional convention. Although he did not play a prominent part in this convention, shortly after its adjournment he was elected to a seat in the state Senate.

In 1870 he resigned from this body to take a seat in the national House of Representatives made vacant by the refusal of the house to accept the credentials of B. F. Whittemore. He thereby won the distinction of being the first negro to be a member of that body.

He served in Congress until March 3, 1879, when he was replaced by a Democrat. Because of his color he attracted far more attention than is usually accorded a congressman of his limited experience, and he demonstrated considerable ability as the expounder of the political aspirations of his race. In debate he was courteous and suave rather than aggressive, but he possessed the ability to defend himself well when necessary.

He made impressive speeches in favor of legislation to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, the Ku Klux Act, and the Civil Rights Bill. Although he did not advocate legislation designed to enforce social equality between the races he demanded that the negro be given all civil rights and be admitted to all public places. In order to show that he was in earnest in this respect he entered the dining room of a white hotel in Suffolk, Va. , and refused to leave until he was forcibly ejected. His most notable speech was a eulogy of Charles Sumner at the time of the death of the Massachusetts senator.

Upon his retirement from Congress he was appointed a special agent of the treasury department for South Carolina, serving in this capacity until July 15, 1881, when he resigned. He subsequently engaged in the banking and brokerage business in Washington, D. C. , but broken in health and fortune he retired in 1886 and returned to Georgetown, South Carolina, where he died the following year.

Achievements

• He was the first black person to serve in the United States House of Representatives, the second biracial person to serve in the United States Congress (U. S. Senator Hiram Revels was the first), and the first biracial presiding officer of the House of Representatives.

Politics

Although a regular Republican he did not attempt to humiliate the Southern whites whom he had replaced.

Connections

He married Susan, a free woman of color from the West Indies, who was also of African-French descent. They had three children: Joseph II, Herbert and Olivia.

Father:

Edward Rainey

Mother:

Grace

sibling:

Edward

Daughter:

Olivia

Son:

Herbert

Son:

Joseph II