politician publisher statesman
He was born on May 10, 1837 at Macon, Georgia, United States, the son of a white Mississippi planter, said to be William Pinchback, and of Eliza Stewart who had been a slave. He is sometimes referred to by the nickname "Percy Bysshe Shelley Pinchback. " He was born free, because his mother had been emancipated by the father of her children.
About 1847 he was sent to high school in Cincinnati.
In 1848 became a cabin boy and, later, a steward on riverboats. In 1862, running the blockade at Yazoo City, he reached New Orleans, which was already in possession of the Union forces. He enlisted, raised a company of colored volunteers, known as the Corps d'Afrique, but resigned his commission in September 1863 because of difficulties over his race.
At the close of the war he threw himself into Louisiana politics. In 1867 he organized the fourth-ward Republican club, became a member of the state committee, and was sent to the constitutional convention of 1868. In 1868 he was elected to the state Senate, where he was elected president pro tempore in the exciting session of December 1871, and became, by virtue of that office, lieutenant-governor at the death of the mulatto incumbent, O. J. Dunn, in 1871. For the brief period from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873, he filled the gubernatorial office, while Henry Clay Warmoth was debarred from serving on account of impeachment proceedings.
Though he had been originally nominated for governor by his wing of the Republican party in the fall campaign of 1872 he consented, in the interest of party harmony, to accept the place of congressman-at-large on the Republican ticket. He was declared elected, but he was never seated because his Democratic opponent contested and ultimately won the seat. His experience in the Senate was similar, for, although elected senator by the Louisiana legislature in January 1873, after a contest of three years he was denied the seat by a close vote. He was, however, allowed payment equal to salary and mileage up to the termination of the contest.
In 1877 he left the Republican party to support Governor Nicholls and the Democrats. The last office in his public career was that of surveyor of customs in New Orleans, to which he was appointed in 1882. He was, however, later recognized by several honorary posts.
When fifty years old, turning from politics to law, he took the law course at Straight University, now Straight College, in New Orleans, and won admission to the bar, though he never practised his profession. In 1890 he removed to Washington, where he lived until his death in 1921.
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was the first African American to become governor of a U. S. state. He represented the typical negro politician of the Reconstruction period, serving as the 24th Governor of Louisiana. Pinchback also served as a delegate to the 1879 Louisiana constitutional convention, where he helped gain support for the founding of Southern University. Besides, he helped challenge the segregation of Louisiana's public transportation system, leading to the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson.
He was shrewd, energetic, aggressive.
He was married to Nina Emily Hawthorne probably in 1860.
