In 1870 Republican Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives and take his seat. Others were elected earlier but were not seated. Rainey was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, on June 21, 1832. His parents had been slaves but his father purchased his family’s freedom and taught him to be a barber. The family moved to Charleston in 1846. Rainey, however, traveled frequently outside the South. In 1859, Rainey went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania There he met and married Susan, a free woman of color from the West Indies, who was also of African-French descent. They returned to South Carolina, where their three children were born: Joseph II, Herbert and Olivia.
In 1861, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, Rainey was among free blacks drafted by the Confederate government to work on fortifications in Charleston, South Carolina. He also worked as a cook and laborer on blockade runner ships.. In 1862 he escaped to Bermuda with his wife and worked there as a barber before returning to South Carolina in 1866.
Once back in the state, he joined the executive committee of the newly formed South Carolina Republican party. In 1868 he was elected a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention. Two years later in 1870 Rainey was elected to a four-year term in the state senate where he soon became the Chairman of the Finance Committee. His tenure in the South Carolina State Senate was brief. When South Carolina's Congressman Benjamin F. Whittemore resigned Rainey won the seat in a special election. Rainey was seated December 12, 1870 serving a total of four terms. Rainey ran for reelection in 1872 without opposition. Serving until March 3, 1879, he established a record of length of service for a black Congressman that was not surpassed until 1950s. In May 1874 he became the first African American representative to preside over a House session.
In 1876, with the Democrats reemerging as the dominant force in South Carolina at the end of Reconstruction, Rainey barely defeated Democrat John S. Richardson for Congress. Richardson, who never conceded the election, contested Rainey’s seat for the next two years and in 1878 Richardson won the seat, ending Rainey’s Congressional career.
Rainey returned to South Carolina and in 1879 was appointed an Internal Revenue Agent in the state by President Rutherford B. Hayes. He held the post until 1881 when he returned to Washington, D.C. where he hoped to serve as Clerk of the House of Representatives. After this failed he returned to South Carolina impoverished and ill.
Joseph Hayne Rainey died in Georgetown on August 2, 1887, leaving a widow and five children.
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