Josiah T. Walls - Political Career

Political Career

Walls was elected as the sole representative from Florida to the Forty-second United States Congress in 1871, but the vote was contested by Silas L. Niblack. The U.S. Committee on Elections eventually unseated Walls. Walls ran and was elected again in 1873. In office, Walls introduced bills to establish a national education fund and aid pensioners and Seminole War Veterans.

After serving one term in the house, Walls ran for re-election in 1874. He apparently won the election but Jesse Finley contested this and was eventually declared the winner by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. This unseating would mark the end of his political career and it would not be until 2011, with the election of Congressman Allen West, that another black Republican from Florida would serve in the United States House of Representatives.

He ran a successful plantation in Alachua County until the disastrous freeze of 1894-95, which destroyed his farm. He took a teaching position, as Farm Director of Florida A&M University, in Tallahassee, where he died on May 15, 1905.