Bobby J. Donaldson

Bobby J. Donaldson is an associate professor of history and director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina.

Rainey’s “polite and dignified bearing enforces respect,” an 1871 newspaper report said before disparaging him as unequal to the “best men of the House.”

Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long

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