O'Hara, James Edward, 1844-1905

<p>James Edward O'Hara, congressman, Halifax county commissioner, black politician, educator, and lawyer, was born in New York City, the son of an Irish seaman and a West Indian woman. At age six, he moved with his parents to the West Indies. It is said that he was a resident of St. Croix, Virgin Islands (at the time a Danish possession), St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and Jamaica. Eventually, he returned to New York and, in the fall of 1862, accompanied a group of missionaries to eastern North Carolina, then occupied by Federal troops at the onset of the Civil War.</p>

<p>After he embarked on a teaching career in his adopted state, O'Hara's abilities as an educator became well known among his fellow blacks and served as an impetus for his political career. During the early years of Reconstruction, he was called upon to perform secretarial work at various meetings in which black leaders participated. O'Hara served as secretary for the North Carolina Freedman's Convention of 1866. The following year he was secretary for the North Carolina Republican conventions of March and September, the executive committee of the state Republican party, and the Wayne County Republican Convention. (In 1867, as a resident of Wayne County, he applied for U.S. citizenship.) His clerical work in politics continued when he served as engrossing clerk for the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868 and for the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1868 and 1869.</p>

<p>Having studied law at Howard University in Washington, D.C., O'Hara was admitted to the bar in 1873, and he immediately established a busy practice in Enfield, Halifax County. Throughout Reconstruction, he was active in Republican party politics in North Carolina. He became a member of the Halifax County Board of Commissioners, serving as chairman from 1872 to 1876.</p>

<p>James Edward O'Hara (February 26, 1844 – September 15, 1905) was an American politician and attorney who in 1882, after Reconstruction, was the second African American to be elected to Congress from North Carolina. He was born in New York City to parents of mixed-race West Indian and Irish ancestry and was raised in the West Indies. As a young man, he traveled to the southern United States after the American Civil War with religious missionaries from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination, to help freedmen establish independent lives and new congregations. O'Hara became active in politics, being elected as a Republican to local and state offices.</p>

<p>O'Hara passed the bar in North Carolina in 1873 and started a law practice there. In 1878, he ran for Congress and won, but his white opponent was ruled the winner by corrupt public officials. In 1882, O'Hara was elected as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district, where there was a black majority. He served two terms. After being defeated in the 1886 election, he returned to his law practice.</p>

<p>A freeborn Irish–West Indian, James O’Hara was the only black Member on the first day of the 48th Congress (1883–1885), having succeeded on his fourth attempt to win a seat representing North Carolina’s “Black Second” district. A resolute legislator, he worked to restore the civil rights stripped from African Americans since the end of Congressional Reconstruction in 1877. “I for one … hold that we are all Americans,” he told his congressional colleagues. “That no matter whether a man is black or white he is an American citizen, and that the aegis of this great Republic should be held over him regardless of his color.”1 Despite O’Hara’s drive to secure a seat in the House and, subsequently, to pass legislation, congressional opponents of black civil rights stymied his efforts.</p>

<p>James Edward O’Hara was born February 26, 1844, in New York City. The illegitimate son of an Irish merchant and a black West Indian mother, he had light skin and red highlights in his curly hair. The historical record first picks up O’Hara in the company of New York–based missionaries in Union–occupied eastern North Carolina in 1862. Well–educated, he taught primary school to free black children in New Bern and Goldsboro, North Carolina. In 1864, O’Hara married Ann Marie Harris, but the couple separated two years later and eventually divorced. They had one son, born after their divorce. O’Hara married Elizabeth Eleanor Harris in 1869. They also had a son, Raphael. O’Hara studied law at Howard University in Washington, DC, but there is no record of his graduation. Admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1873, he established a private practice in Enfield, North Carolina.</p>

<p>North Carolina was a bastion of lucrative patronage positions in the 1870s, and Republican lawmakers clamored for offices. James O’Hara was quick to recognize these benefits and became involved in the local party machine. He first served as a secretary at the freedmen’s and Republican Party meetings just after the Civil War, composing reports for newspapers. At the 1868 North Carolina constitutional convention, he served as a delegate and an engrossing clerk. From 1868 to 1869, O’Hara also served in the state house of representatives. In 1873, he was elected chairman of the Halifax County board of commissioners. During his four–year tenure, O’Hara endured multiple Democratic accusations of corruption and extravagance—all of which he initially denied, claiming the charges were politically and racially motivated. However, when he and several other Republican commissioners were indicted, O’Hara and a colleague pleaded no contest and agreed to pay court costs to have the charges dropped. O’Hara faced further difficulty in 1876, when he resigned his post as a presidential elector in the face of threats from local Democrats.</p>

O'HARA, James Edward, a Representative from North Carolina; born in New York City February 26, 1844; pursued an academic course; studied law in North Carolina and at Howard University, Washington, D.C.; engrossing clerk in the constitutional convention of North Carolina in 1868, also in the State house of representatives in 1868 and 1869; chairman of the board of commissioners for Halifax County 1872-1876; was admitted to the bar in 1873 and practiced; member of the State constitutional convention in 1875; unsuccessfully contested the election of William H. Kitchin to the Forty-sixth Congress; elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1887); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1886 to the Fiftieth Congress; resumed the practice of law in New Bern, Craven County, N.C., and died there September 15, 1905; interment in Greenwood Cemetery.