Background
Richard Harvey Cain was born to free black parents in Greenbrier County Virginia, which is now in West Virginia.
United States representative politician
Richard Harvey Cain was born to free black parents in Greenbrier County Virginia, which is now in West Virginia.
He attended Wilberforce University and attended divinity school in Hannibal, Missouri.
He was raised in Gallipolis, Ohio. Cain worked as a barber in Galena, Illinois before he migrated south. By 1859 he became a deacon in Muscatine, Iowa.
In 1861, Cain was called as a pastor in Brooklyn, New New York
In 1862, he was ordained as an elder in 1862 and remained at the Brooklyn church until 1865. After the Civil War, Cain moved to Charleston, South Carolina in 1865 as superintendent of AME missions.
The AME Church attracted tens of thousands of converts to its denomination very rapidly. Cain became active in politics, serving as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1868.
He represented Charleston County in the South Carolina Senate from 1868 to 1872.
He also edited the South Carolina Leader newspaper (later renamed the Missionary Record). He was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third United States Congress in a newly created at-large district. He did not run for re-election in 1874 after redistricting, but ran for the 2nd district in 1876.
He was elected to the Forty-fifth United States Congress.
His major congressional effort was advocating the Civil Rights Acting of 1875. He helped found Paul Quinn College and served as its president until 1884.
Cain died in Washington on January 18, 1887 and was buried in Graceland Cemetery there, but may have been removed to Woodlawn Cemetery (Washington, District of Columbia) about a decade later, when Graceland closed and many of its interments were reburied in Woodlawn.