Lynch, John Roy, 1847-1939

<p>A planter, Reconstruction-era politician, Republican civil servant, and important historian, John Roy Lynch was born on 10 September 1847 on Tacony plantation, near the town of Vidalia, Louisiana, in Concordia Parish. The biracial progeny of plantation manager Patrick Lynch, an Irish immigrant, and slave Catherine White, Lynch followed his mother’s status into slavery. While saving to buy the family, his father died and left them enslaved. Later sold across the Mississippi River to Natchez, Lynch finally gained freedom after Union troops occupied the city in 1863. Lynch remained in Natchez and worked as a photographer during the day and attended school at night.</p>

<p>In 1869 Gov. Adelbert Ames appointed Lynch to serve as a justice of the peace. Later that year he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where his intellect and oratorical skill apparently impressed both black and white colleagues. His legislative record led not only to his reelection but also to his 1872 selection as Speaker of the House.</p>

<p>In 1872 Lynch won a seat in the US House of Representatives, and he was reelected two years later. He lost the seat in 1876 but he returned to Congress for almost a year after contesting Gen. James R. Chalmers’s election in 1882. Lynch again failed to win reelection in 1884 and retired to his plantation in Adams County. On 18 December 1884 he married Mobile native Ella Wickham Somerville.</p>

<p>John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 – November 2, 1939) was a black Republican politician, writer, attorney and military officer. Born into slavery in Louisiana, he became free in 1863 under the Emancipation Proclamation. His father was an Irish immigrant and his parents had a common-law marriage. After serving for several years in the state legislature, in 1873 Lynch was elected as the first African-American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives; he was the first black man (considered so) to hold this position in the country. During Reconstruction after the American Civil War, he was among the first generation of African Americans from the South elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1873 to 1877 and again in the 1880s. Faced with increasing restrictions in Mississippi, Lynch studied law, passed the bar, and returned to Washington, DC to set up a practice.</p>

<p>After Democrats regained power in the state legislature following Reconstruction, in 1890 they disenfranchised most blacks in the state (who were a majority of the population) by a new constitution that raised barriers to voter registration. Then in his 50s, Lynch studied law; he was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1896. Seeing the effects of disenfranchisement, Lynch left the state and returned to Washington, DC to practice law. He served in the United States Army during the Spanish–American War and for a decade into the early 1900s, achieving the rank of major. After retiring, Lynch moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he lived for more than two decades. After his military service, Lynch was active in law and real estate in Chicago.</p>

<p>Beginning in 1877, when Reconstruction ended with the federal government withdrawing its troops from the South, Lynch wrote and published four books: these analyzed the political situation in the South during and after Reconstruction. He is best known for his book, <i>The Facts of Reconstruction</i> (1913). In it, he argued against the prevailing view of the Dunning School, conservative white historians who downplayed African-American contributions and the achievements of the Reconstruction era. Lynch emphasized how significant was the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which granted full citizenship to all persons without restriction of race or color, and suffrage to minority males.</p>

<p>The only African–American Representative from Mississippi for a century, following a quick rise in politics at a young age, John Roy Lynch fought to maintain Republican hegemony in his state in the face of violent Democratic opposition. A veteran of the Civil War and, later, the Spanish–American War, Lynch emphasized his rights as an American citizen on the House Floor. “It is certainly known by southern as well as northern men that the colored people of this country are thoroughly American,” he declared. “Born and raised upon American soil and under the influence of American institutions; not American citizens by adoption, but by birth.”1 An outspoken advocate for the Civil Rights Bill of 1875 and an active Republican throughout his long life, Lynch later challenged a major school of interpretation that disparaged black political activity during the Reconstruction Era.</p>

<p>John Roy Lynch was born into slavery near Vidalia, Louisiana, on September 10, 1847. His Irish immigrant father, Patrick Lynch, managed the Tacony Plantation, and his mother, Catherine White, was a mixed-race slave. He had two older brothers, William and Edward. John Lynch became the personal valet of his owner, Mississippian Alfred W. Davis, until Davis was drafted by the Confederate Army in 1862. Lynch recalled Davis as “reasonable, fair, and considerate.” After being emancipated at the end of the war, Lynch worked as a cook for the 49th Illinois Volunteers regiment and performed other odd jobs. He subsequently managed a photographer’s studio. Lynch’s business prospered, and he invested in local real estate.</p>

<p>Lynch rose rapidly in politics because of the opportunities that were available to black men in Reconstruction–Era Mississippi. He began his political career in 1868 by speaking at the local Republican club in favor of a new Mississippi constitution. The following year, he served as an assistant secretary at the Republican state convention. In April 1869, the local Republican Party selected Lynch to advise Reconstruction Governor Adelbert Ames about various candidates for political positions in Natchez, Mississippi. When the list of appointments was unveiled, Lynch professed to be surprised to find he had been appointed justice of the peace. The local favorite for the appointment, Reverend H. P. Jacobs, accused Lynch of stealing the position. In November 1869, Lynch won his first elected office, serving in the Mississippi state house of representatives. In January 1872, colleagues selected the 24–year–old as speaker.</p>

LYNCH, John Roy, a Representative from Mississippi; born near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, La., September 10, 1847; after his father's death moved with his mother to Natchez, Miss., in 1863, where they were held as slaves; after emancipation engaged in photography and attended evening school; appointed by Governor Ames as a justice of the peace in 1869; member of the State house of representatives 1869-1873 and served the last term as speaker; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1872, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1900; elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1876 to the Forty-fifth Congress; successfully contested the election of James R. Chalmers to the Forty-seventh Congress and served from April 29, 1882, to March 3, 1883; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress; returned to his plantation in Adams County, Miss., and engaged in agricultural pursuits; chairman of the Republican State executive committee 1881-1889; member of the Republican National Committee for the State of Mississippi 1884-1889; temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention at Chicago in 1884; Fourth Auditor of the Treasury for the Navy Department under President Harrison 1889-1893; studied law; was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1896; returned to Washington, D.C., in 1897, where he practiced his profession until 1898, when he was appointed a major and additional paymaster of Volunteers during the Spanish-American War by President William McKinley; was appointed by President McKinley as a paymaster in the Regular Army with the rank of captain in 1901; was promoted to major in 1906; retired from the Regular Army in 1911; moved to Chicago, Ill., in 1912 and continued the practice of his profession until his death in that city on November 2, 1939; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.