Josiah Thomas Walls (1832-1905)

Josiah Thomas Walls was born a slave in Winchester, Virginia on December 30, 1842. He was conscripted by the Confederate Army and captured in Yorktown by Union forces in 1862. Walls then enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops Infantry Regiment in 1863 where he rose in rank to First Sergeant. Prior to his discharge from the Army in 1865, Walls married Helen Ferguson of Newnansville, Florida.

After leaving the U.S. Army, Walls settled in Alachua County, Florida and became active in local politics. After passage of the U.S. Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, Walls joined the newly formed Republican Party in Florida. He was an elected delegate to the 1868 state constitutional conventions and shortly afterward was elected to the lower house of the State Legislature in 1868. He advanced to the State Senate representing the 13th District, which was mostly Alachua County, in 1869. First elected to the Congress in 1870, Josiah T. Walls became Florida’s first elected African American Congressman.

Walls’s six year tenure as a U.S. Congressman was filled with controversy. He was the only black representative unseated three times by opponents challenging his elections in 1870, 1872, and 1874 including J.J. Finley, a former Confederate General. Despite these disputed elections, Walls compiled a legislative record which included introducing bills favoring land grants to railroads and securing connections to ports servicing Cuba and the West Indies. Walls also submitted measures to reinforce the Civil Rights Act of 1866. After serving in Congress he returned to the Florida State legislature and resumed farming on his 175 acre plantation near Gainesville, Florida. Walls also purchased a newspaper, The New Era. Walls remained active in politics serving at various times as mayor of Gainesville, a member of the County Board of Public Instruction and County Commissioner. In 1896 he moved to Tallahassee to become the Farm Director at what is now Florida A&M University.

Josiah Thomas Walls died on May 5, 1905 in Tallahassee, Florida

Comments

Queen Philippa: England's First Black Queen

England's First Black Queen, Mother of the Black Prince Philippa was the daughter of William of Hainault, a lord in part of what is now Belgium. When she was nine the King of England, Edward II, decided that he would marry his son, the future Edward III, to her, and sent one of his bishops, a Bishop Stapeldon, to look at her. He described her thus: "The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is cleaned shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than the forehead. Her eyes are blackish brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that is somewhat broad at the tip and flattened, yet it is no snub nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full and especially the lower lip…a

PHYLLIS LINDA HYMAN (July 6, 1949 – June 30, 1995)

Phyllis Hyman was born in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , and grew up in St. Clair Village , the South Hills section of Pittsburgh . Born to an Italian mother, (Louise), and African-American father, (Phillip), Hyman was the eldest of seven children. Through her paternal great-grandparents Ishmael and Cassandra (Cross) Hyman, she was also the first cousin once removed of actor Earle Hyman (best known for his recurring role on The Cosby Show as Cliff's father, Russell Huxtable). After leaving Pittsburgh, her music training started at a music school. On graduation, she performed on a national tour with the group New Direction in 1971. After the group disbanded, she joined All the People and worked with another local group, The Hondo Beat. At this time, she appeared in the film Lenny (1974). She also did a two-year stint leading a band called "Phyllis Hyman and the P/H Factor". She was discovered in 1975 by music industry veteran Sid Maurer, and former Epic Re

Elizabeth Key Grinstead (b. 1630 - d. c. after 1665)

Elizabeth Grimstead was one of the first women of African ancestry in the North American colonies to sue for her freedom from slavery and win. Elizabeth Key won her freedom and that of her infant son John Grinstead on July 21, 1656 in the colony of Virginia. She sued based on the fact that her father was an Englishman and that she was a baptized Christian . Based on these two factors, her English attorney and common-law husband William Grinstead argued successfully that she should be freed. The lawsuit in 1655 was one of the earliest " freedom suits " by a person of African ancestry in the English colonies. In response to Key's suit and other challenges, in 1662 the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law that the status of children born in the colony would follow the status of the mother, "bond or free", rather than the father, as had been the precedent in English common law and was the case in England. This was the principle of partus seq

Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Search This Blog