John R. Lynch - Life and Politics

Life and Politics

Lynch was born into slavery near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, Louisiana, as his mother, Catherine White, was a slave, of mixed European and African ancestry. His father, Patrick Lynch, was an immigrant from Dublin, Ireland, who had become a planter and was their master. After John was born, his father planned to move the family to New Orleans and free Catherine and their son. Lynch died of illness before carrying out his plan.

Promising to free the mother and child, a friend had taken title of Catherine and John from Patrick Lynch before he died. But the friend sold the two to a planter in Natchez, Mississippi. Catherine and John were held in slavery until 1863, after the Union Army arrived in Mississippi and President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Lynch learned the photography trade and managed a successful business in Natchez. Although the total of his formal education until then was only four months in night school, he educated himself by reading books and newspapers. In addition, Lynch eavesdropped on class lessons in a white school.

Lynch's leadership abilities were recognized in post-war political opportunities. In 1869 he was appointed by the governor as a Justice of the Peace, and later that year was elected to the Mississippi State House. He was re-elected for several terms, serving until 1873; in his last term, he was elected as Speaker of the Mississippi House, the first African American to achieve that position.

At the age of 26, in 1873, he was elected to the US Congress, as part of the first generation of African-American Congressmen. He introduced many bills and argued on their behalf. Perhaps his greatest effort was in the long debate supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to ban discrimination in public accommodations. One of his speeches included the following:

In 1876 the Democratic Party of Mississippi contested Lynch's third-term election, at a particularly contentious time in the South. Since 1874, the Red Shirts, a white paramilitary group, had worked openly to intimidate and suppress black voting on behalf of the Democratic Party. Lynch was not allowed to take his seat. In 1877 the federal government withdrew its troops from the South as part of a national compromise and Reconstruction was considered ended.

In 1880 Lynch ran against the Democrat James R. Chalmers, and contested the Democrats' declaration of victory. Lynch fought for a year before gaining the seat in 1882. The next election was close, leaving him little time to campaign. Lynch lost re-election in 1882 by 600 votes, at a time when white insurgents practiced intimidation to reduce the black vote.

He served as a member of the Republican National Committee for Mississippi from 1884-1889. In 1884 future President Theodore Roosevelt made a moving speech by which he nominated Lynch as the first African American to be Temporary Chairman of the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.