De Priest, Oscar, 1871-1951

DE PRIEST, Oscar Stanton, a Representative from Illinois; born in Florence, Lauderdale County, Ala., March 9, 1871; moved to Kansas in 1878 with his parents, who settled in Salina; attended the public schools and Salina (Kans.) Normal School; engaged as a painter and decorator; moved to Chicago, Ill., in 1889 and became a real estate broker; member of the board of commissioners of Cook County, Ill., 1904-1908; member of the city council 1915-1917; elected as a Republican to the Seventy-first and to the two succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1929-January 3, 1935); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1934 to the Seventy-fourth Congress and for election in 1936 to the Seventy-fifth Congress; resumed the real estate business; vice chairman of the Cook County Republican central committee 1932-1934; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1936; again a member of the city council 1943-1947; died in Chicago, Ill., May 12, 1951; interment in Graceland Cemetery.

<p>Oscar De Priest was the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century, ending a 28–year absence of black Representatives. De Priest’s victory—he was the first black Member from the North—marked a new era of black political organization in urban areas, as evidenced by the South Side district of Chicago, whose continuous African–American representation began with De Priest’s election in 1928. Although he made scant legislative headway during his three terms in Congress, De Priest became a national symbol of hope for African Americans, and he helped lay the groundwork for future black Members of the House and Senate.</p>

<p>Oscar Stanton De Priest was born to former slaves Alexander and Mary (Karsner) De Priest in Florence, Alabama, on March 9, 1871. His father later worked as a teamster and a farmer, while his mother found part–time employment as a laundress. In 1878, the De Priest family, along with thousands of other black residents of the Mississippi Valley, moved to Kansas. The migrants from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama sought to escape poor economic and social conditions after Democrats and former Confederates regained control of southern state governments at the end of Reconstruction. These families, one historian wrote, were “pushed by fears of damnation and pulled by belief” in a better life in Kansas. De Priest graduated from elementary school in Salina and enrolled in a business course at the Salina Normal School, where he studied bookkeeping. In 1889 he settled in Chicago before the great wave of African–American migration to northern cities during and after World War I. In Chicago, De Priest worked as an apprentice plasterer, house painter, and decorator, and he eventually established his own business and a real estate management firm. On February 23, 1898, he married Jessie Williams (a music teacher whose family was from Pennsylvania), and they had two sons—Laurence and Oscar Stanton, Jr. Laurence died as a teenager in a drowning accident.</p>

<p>De Priest’s foray into politics was facilitated by Chicago’s budding machine organization. Divided into wards and precincts, Chicago evolved into a city governed by a system of political appointments, patronage positions, and favors. Unable to consolidate control of the city before the 1930s, Chicago mayors nonetheless wielded considerable authority. De Priest recognized the potential for a career as a local leader in a city with few black politicians whose African–American population was experiencing dramatic growth. At first comfortable with a behind–the–scenes role, De Priest eventually assumed a more prominent political position as a loyal Republican interested in helping his party gain influence in Chicago. By 1904, De Priest’s ability to bargain for and deliver the black vote in the Second and Third Wards gained him his first elected position: a seat on Chicago’s Cook County board of commissioners. He retained this position for two terms, from 1904 through 1908. Caught between rival factions, De Priest failed to secure a third term as commissioner. During a seven–year break from politics, he turned his attention to real estate, and became an affluent businessman.</p>

<p>Oscar DePriest was born in Florence, Alabama, to ex-slaves. He arrived in Chicago in 1889. DePriest worked as a painter and decorator, reportedly on occasion passing for white to get a job. He developed his own contracting business and began participating in community affairs. He began his political career as a precinct secretary, but by 1904 was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners.</p>

<p>DePriest amassed considerable wealth as a real-estate agent, partly through what later would become known as blockbusting. When the African American population of the Second Ward approached 50 percent in 1915, white leaders of the Republican ward organization backed DePriest for city council. He served one term, becoming the first African American elected to city council in Chicago. He showed interest mainly in civil rights issues and patronage. Indicted for protecting South Side gamblers in 1917, he left his council seat and later won acquittal.</p>

<p>In 1928 he became the first African American congressman elected to the House of Representatives from a northern state and a national symbol for racial pride. He fought for civil rights but took conservative positions on economic issues and lost his seat to a New Deal Democrat in 1934. He served one more term in the city council at the end of the following decade. De Priest devoted the rest of his years to his real-estate business.</p>

<p>Oscar Stanton De Priest (March 9, 1871 – May 12, 1951) was an American politician and civil rights advocate from Chicago. A member of the Illinois Republican Party, he was the first African American to be elected to Congress in the 20th century. During his three terms, he was the only African American serving in Congress. He served as a U.S. Representative from Illinois' 1st congressional district from 1929 to 1935. De Priest was also the first African-American U.S. Representative from outside the southern states and the first since the exit of North Carolina representative George Henry White from Congress in 1901.</p>

<p>Born in Alabama to freedmen parents, De Priest was raised in Dayton, Ohio. He studied business and made a fortune in Chicago as a contractor, and in real estate and the stock market before the Crash. A successful local politician, he was elected to the Chicago City Council in 1914, the first African American to hold that office.</p>

<p>In Congress in the early 1930s, he spoke out against racial discrimination, including at speaking events in the South; tried to integrate the House public restaurant; gained passage of an amendment to desegregate the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the work programs under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal; and introduced anti-lynching legislation to the House (it was not passed because of the Solid South Democratic opposition). In 1934, De Priest was defeated by Arthur W. Mitchell, the first African American to be elected as a Democrat to Congress. De Priest returned to Chicago and his successful business ventures, eventually returning to politics, when he was again elected Chicago alderman in the 1940s.</p>