Menard, John Willis, 1838-1893

<p>John Willis Menard, abolitionist, author, journalist and politician, was born in 1838 in Kaskaskia, Illinois, to French Creole parents. He was the first African American elected to Congress, but was not seated after a dispute over the election results. Menard attended Iberia College, an abolitionist school in Iberia, Ohio.</p>

<p>Twenty-two year old Menard expressed his abolitionist views in his widely read 1860 publication, An Address to the Free Colored People of Illinois. During the Civil War, he became the first African American to serve as a clerk in the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. While there, President Abraham Lincoln dispatched him to research British Honduras (now Belize) as a possible colony for the African American population.</p>

<p>At the beginning of Reconstruction, Menard moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he served as inspector of customs in the city and later as a commissioner of streets. He also published The Radical Standard, a civil rights advocacy newspaper. In 1868, during a special election in Louisiana to fill an unexpired term of a deceased congressman, Menard became the first African American elected to Congress. When his opponent contested the outcome, Menard appealed his case on the floor of the House of Representatives, the first African American to address the chamber while in session. The Committee of Elections ruled in favor of the opponent, although Menard was financially compensated, receiving the same salary that he would have earned as a legislator.</p>

<p>John Willis Menard (April 3, 1838 – October 8, 1893) was a federal government employee, poet, newspaper publisher and politician born in Kaskaskia, Illinois to parents who were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans. After moving to New Orleans, on November 3, 1868, Menard was the first black man ever elected to the United States House of Representatives. His opponent contested his election, and opposition to his election prevented him from being seated in Congress.</p>

<p>John Willis Menard was born in 1838 in Kaskaskia in Randolph County in southern Illinois, to parents who were free people of color. They were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans, of mostly European and some African descent. He may have been related to Michel Branamour Menard, a French-Canadian fur trader and a founder of Galveston, Texas. Menard attended school in Sparta, Illinois and Ohio Central College, then Iberia College in Iberia, Ohio.</p>

<p>During the American Civil War, Menard worked as a clerk in the Department of the Interior under President Abraham Lincoln. He was sent to British Honduras in 1863 to investigate a proposed colony for newly freed slaves. After the war Menard settled in New Orleans.</p>

<p>Menard moved to New Orleans in 1865, establishing the newspaper, The Free South, later named The Radical Standard. In an 1868 special election to fill the unexpired term of James Mann, a Democrat who had died in office, Menard was elected as a Republican to represent Louisiana's 2nd congressional district. He was denied the seat on the basis of an election challenge by the apparent loser, Caleb S. Hunt. On February 27, 1869, Menard became the first African American to address the chamber.</p>

<p>A writer, publisher, speaker, and public servant, John Willis Menard was a trailblazer from Randolph County who broke down barriers for African-Americans in numerous public institutions, including the United States Congress.</p>

<p>Menard was born in Kaskaskia in 1838 to parents whose names have not been recorded. Some sources say that his mother and father were from New Orleans, while others write that they were from Illinois. All note that they were free. Menard was of mixed-race heritage – his parents are often described as “Creoles” – and it’s possible that he was descended from the French-Canadian Menard family that settled in Kaskaskia fifty years before his birth. A number of newspaper articles published during his lifetime claim that he was a grandson of Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant-governor of Illinois, who lived in Kaskaskia and owned a large number of slaves. By the time of John Willis Menard’s birth, slavery had been replaced in Illinois with a system of indentured servitude, but across the river in Missouri, slavery was still a legal institution.</p>

<p>Menard was educated locally at an abolitionist school in Sparta. A talented writer and orator, he was recognized early in his life for his speaking skills. In 1859, at the age of twenty-one, he traveled to Springfield to speak at a celebration marking the end of slavery in the West Indies. He garnered major attention for his speech, which was described as “stirring” and “truly the best of the day.” While he continued to produce pamphlets and pieces for abolitionist newspapers and presses, he also focused on furthering his education. He studied for two years at Iberia College in Ohio, one of the only colleges in America that admitted black students at the time. He spent time in Canada before returning to the United States, where he enlisted in the army and began working as a hospital steward.</p>