John R. Lynch

John Roy Lynch
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's 6th district
In office March 4, 1873 - March 3, 1877 and April 29, 1882 - March 3, 1883
Preceded by	James Ronald Chalmers
Succeeded by	Henry Smith Van Eaton
Born	September 10, 1847 near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, Louisiana
Died	November 2, 1939 Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Republican

John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 - November 2, 1939) was the first African American Speaker of the House in Mississippi. He was also one of the first African American members of the U.S House of Representatives during the Reconstruction, the period in United States history after the Civil War.

Biography

Lynch was born a slave near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, Louisiana. Lynch's father, Patrick, an immigrant from Ireland, was a planter near Vidalia. His mother, Catherine White, was a slave. After John's birth his father planned to move the family to New Orleans and free them. His father's fatal illness ended this plan. A friend, promising to free the family, took title of the Lynches from Patrick. However, the promise was not kept, and the family was sold to a planter in Natchez, Mississippi. He was held in slavery under the breakaway Confederate government in the southern part of the United States. According to historian Eric Foner, Lynch was freed by the United States Union Army in 1863 near the end of the Civil War. 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 was only four months in night school, he educated himself by reading books and newspapers, and by secretly eavesdropping on class lessons in a white school. Lynch took advantage of the post-war political opportunities for Blacks, becoming first a Justice of the Peace, and then a Mississippi State Representative. He was only 26 when he was elected to Congress. There, he continued to be an activist, introducing many bills and arguing on their behalf. Perhaps his greatest effort was in the long debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that banned discrimination in public accommodations. The contesting of Lynch's third term election, in 1876, was typical of the political times. He was not allowed to take his seat, but he ran again in 1880. This election was also contested, and Lynch fought for a year before being seated. At this point, the next election was close, leaving little time to campaign. He lost the 1882 election by only 600 votes. In 1884 Lynch married Ella Sommerville. They had a daughter before their divorce. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, he was appointed Treasury Auditor and then Paymaster. In 1901, he began serving with the Regular Army with tours of duty in the United States, Cuba, and the Philippines. Lynch retired from the Army in 1911, then married Cora Williams; and they moved to Chicago, where he practiced law and once again became involved in real estate. After his death in Chicago 1939 at the age of 92, he was buried with military honors in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Part of his famous speech on civil rights

The Facts of Reconstruction

According to Foner, Lynch "published a book, The Facts of Reconstruction, and several articles criticizing the then dominant Dunning School historiography" which presented the views of former slave owners and routinely showed the role of African Americans during Reconstruction in a false light. The Facts of Reconstruction is freely available online [1], courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. His book is a Primary Source in the study of Reconstruction.

Works by Lynch

• Colored Americans: John R. Lynch's Appeal To Them. Milwaukee: Allied Printing, [1900?]
• The Facts of Reconstruction. New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1913. Reprint, edited by William C. Harris, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., [1970].
• The Late Election in Mississippi. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877.
• Some Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes. Boston: The Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.
• The Facts of Reconstruction (New York, 1913) [2]
• Pittsburgh Courier Feb. 22, 1930.

References

• Bell, Frank C. The Life and Times of John R. Lynch: A Case Study 1847-1939 Journal of Mississippi History 38 (February 1976): 53-67.
• DeSantis, Vincent P.Republican Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877-1897 (Baltimore, 1959)
• Foner, Eric ed. "Lynch, John Roy" in Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction Revised Edition. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996). ISBN 0-8071-2082-0.
• Franklin, John Hope. "Lynch, John Roy" in Dictionary of American Negro Biography, edited by Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, pp. 407-9. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1982.
• Franklin, John Hope editor, Reminiscences of an Active Life: The Autobiography of John Roy Lynch (Chicago, 1970).
• Franklin, John Hope. "John Roy Lynch: Republican Stalwart from Mississippi" in Howard Rabinowitz (ed) Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (Urbana, 1982) and reprinted in John Hope Franklin, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988 (Louisiana State University Press, 1989)
• "John Roy Lynch" in Black Americans in Congress, 1870-1989. Prepared under the direction of the Commission on the Bicentenary by the Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1991.
• McLaughlin, James Harold. John R. Lynch, The Reconstruction Politician: A Historical Perspective. Ph.D. diss., Ball State University, 1981.
• Mann, Kenneth Eugene. John Roy Lynch: U.S. Congressman from Mississippi Negro History Bulletin 37 (April/May 1974): 238-41.
• Schweninger, Loren. Black Property Owners in the South 1790-1915 (Urbana, Ill., 1990)

See also

• List of United States Representatives from Mississippi#6th District
• U.S. House election, 1872
• U.S. House election, 1874
• U.S. House election, 1876
• U.S. House election, 1882

External links

• The Facts of Reconstruction by John R. Lynch
• John R. Lynch at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Biography at the African American Registry
• Works by John R. Lynch at Project Gutenberg
• [3]