John Warren was elected as representative from Burke County, which is located south of Augusta on the border with South Carolina. Little is known now of Warren beyond his election to the Georgia Assembly. On January 18, 1870, The Georgia Weekly Telegraph, Journal and Messenger reported that although reinstated, Warren did not appear at the House of Representatives to be sworn in on January 10th. In 1874 Warren was listed as owning 40 acres of land with an estimated worth of $300.
Below is a “report of assaults with intent to murder, committed upon freed people in the division of Albany from January 1st to October 31st 1868.”
JOHN WARREN (shot in the right leg while running, then shot in the back with 5 or 6 buckshot, when already wounded and unable to walk, immediately afterwards, when his pursuers came up, knocked in the head with a gun and wounded in the neck with a pistol ball while laying on the ground. Not all the wounds are healed, is just getting able to walk)
REFERENCES:
“The House of Representatives.” The Georgia Weekly Telegraph, Journal and Messenger January 18, 1870. p. 1.
John T. Costin was born in Virginia (East Washington, DC) around 1828. He was a Freemason and Grand Master of a Black Masonic Lodge in the District of Columbia in the late 1840s. After the Civil War, he came to Georgia as a Republican Party organizer. Costin was a barber, preacher and A.M.E Zion minister, and active member of Black Freemasonry. His father had been involved in assisting runaway slaves prior to the Civil War, and despite threats of physical violence in Georgia, Costin persisted, traveling throughout the state to tell people their rights as free men and women. In a letter back to D.C., Costin wrote:
On my return I stopped at another town called Red Hills, where I performed the same duty and organized clubs in each. I arrived in Waynesboro Friday evening. Our mass meeting was largely attended, all classes being present. To my surprise, I was offered the use of the Court House, but in consequence of the excessive heat and the large number of people, we took the grove. There were people at the meeting from a distance of 25 miles. It was a great success. Everything went off peaceable and pleasant. The freedmen declared it to be the first time since their emancipation that they had ever had explained to them their rights before the law. The rebs. cursed me terribly, some threatening to shoot me, but the only thing that occurred was being spit upon by a rebel while passing the street. I took no notice of the insult, because they were nearly 2000 colored persons in the place and nearly every one had fire-arms.
As a Republican Party organizer, civil rights leader, and political activist, Costin earned the support of many Black voters. He was elected to represent Talbot County in the Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1867/68 and in the Georgia Assembly. Just before election day 1868. Just before Election Day 1868, the KKK threatened Costin with physical violence, and he was forced to leave Talbot County. Nonetheless, Costin was elected and reinstated to the State Legislature in January 1870.
The rebs. cursed me terribly, some threatening to shoot me, but the only thing that occurred was being spit upon by a rebel while passing the street. I took no notice of the insult, because they were nearly 2000 colored persons in the place and nearly every one had fire-arms.
From a letter that Costin sent back to DC
According to the 1870 census, John lived in Washington DC with his wife Elizabeth and their children Virginia (17), Harriet (14), John T (12), Annie (10), and Owen (6.) His occupation was listed as a barber. By 1880 the family was still living in Washington DC. Virginia and her husband William Wilkes, a fireman, were living with the family as well as John T., now 21 and working as a store clerk; Anna, who was at the Normal School; and Owen, who was also in school. Harriet, listed as a servant, was also living with the family.
John T. Costin passed away at the age of 60 at his home in Washington, DC on February 28, 1888. He is buried at Harmony Cemetery in Washington, DC.
Born free in 1828 in Charleston, SC, to Martha Porter, James Ward Porter established a secret school for Black education before the Civil War. He came to Savannah in 1856 as a music director for an A.M.E church and established a music school where he gave lessons to both black and white students while also working as a tailor. Porter also kept a secret school for educating Black pupils, many of whom did their studies in the privacy of their homes. In 1865 Porter opened a school and published English Language for Beginners. He also preached at the Savannah Protestant Episcopal Church. James Ward Porter was elected a state representative in Georgia, representing Chatham County along with fellow Black assemblyman James M. Sims. Porter was the owner of a tailor’s shop in Savannah and was the wealthiest Black political leader in the state. He married Elizabeth. In the 1870 census, he is listed as owning $3,000 in real estate and $400 in personal property and living in Savannah with 4 children: John A. (15), Laura F. (13), James R.(11), Elizabeth M.(7.) In the 1870s Porter led a campaign against the segregation of Savannah streetcars and worked as an inspector of customers in Savannah. He was the first Black principal in Thomasville, GA, and a school principal in Yazoo, Mississippi.
James Merilus Simms was born December 27, 1823, and enslaved at James Potter’s Coleraine Plantation, located upriver from Savannah, Georgia. It’s implied that he was the son of his enslaver, and learned to read and write from the tutor that Potter hired for his white children. In 1857, either Sims or his mother (accounts vary) purchased his freedom. He was baptized into the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, later expelled for lack of humility, and returned in 1858. By 1860, Sims had become an ordained minister and was operating a school for Black children in Savannah. Only six schools of this kind existed in antebellum Savannah, as educating Black people was considered a crime. Simms was the only teacher punished for this crime and was sentenced to a fine of $50 and fifteen lashes. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where his younger brother had moved after escaping enslavement in 1851.
Simms joined the Union Army, serving as chaplain during the Civil War, and by the spring of 1865, he was back in Savannah. In 1867, he established the Southern Radical and Freedman’s Journal (later renamed the Freeman’s Standard). He also worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau and was a Union League organizer. Sims was one of the ministers to sign a petition protesting the treatment of Black soldiers in the Union Army and was an ardent supporter of voting rights.
He wrote The First Colored Baptist Church in North America, which entailed the history of First Bryan Baptist Church, and he is credited with establishing the first Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in Georgia. Simms was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1868. After being expelled, he was reinstated in 1870 but subsequently lost re-election.
The photo of the second church that was built in 1873 and is still used today.
In one of Governor Rufus Bullock‘s last acts before he left office, he appointed James Simms, district judge of the First Senatorial District sitting in Savannah, the first Black judge in Georgia. New Democratic legislators moved the court out of the district. Afterward, Simms received a federal appointment as inspector at the U.S. Customs House in Savannah. He remained active as a senior statesman in the city’s African-American community until his death on July 9, 1912. The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Georgia placed a monument over Simms’ grave in Laurel Grove South Cemetery in June 1920.
Henry McNeal Turner (February 1, 1834 – May 8, 1915) was born free in 1834 in Newberry, South Carolina, to Sarah Greer and Hardy Turner, who were of mixed African-European ancestry. His paternal grandparents were a white woman planter and an African man, who was rumored to be an African prince. According to slave law in the colony, the white woman’s mixed-race children were born free because she was white and free.
At the age of 14, Turner was inspired by a Methodist revival and decided to become a pastor. After earning his pastorate license, Turner traveled the South preaching about the Methodist faith. In 1856, he married Eliza Peacher, the daughter of a wealthy Black contractor from Columbia, South Carolina. In 1858, he moved his family to Saint Louis, Missouri, to escape the possible kidnapping of his family by ruthless slave catchers who received bounties for catching escaped slaves. Slave catchers often rounded up free Black men, women, and children because it required little to no documentation to prove that someone was enslaved.
While in St. Louis, Turner was ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, the first Black Christian denomination in the United States. Turner moved his family to the Washington, DC area to serve area AME churches. It is here where he developed ties with different politicians who would often hear him preach at the area churches.
During the Civil War, Turner helped organize Company B of the United States Colored Troops (UCST) and served as their chaplain. During this time period, his reputation as spokesman and leader spread throughout the USCT and eventually throughout the country. His writings about the experience of the USCT are considered some of the best information about the UCST experience in the Civil War. Additionally, his work helped spread the word about the AME Church. Turner was appointed to work with the Freedmen’s Bureau during Reconstruction.
After the Civil War, Turner helped found the Republican Party of Georgia. Turner ran to be a representative in the Georgia legislature in 1868 and was elected to this position. He represented Bibb County. In 1869, he was appointed to serve as postmaster for Macon.
In 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which forbid racial discrimination in public places, such as hotels and trains, was ruled unconstitutional. Turner, who felt the federal government had failed in its support of the Black community, especially in the South, began to support the emigration of Black people to Africa. He founded the International Migration Society. He organized to send 500 people on two ships to the country of Liberia, which had been founded as an American colony prior to the Civil War and was settled by free American Black men and women.
During the 1870s to 1880s, he served as president of Morris Brown College for twelve years starting in 1876. Turner was elected as the twelfth bishop of the AME Church in 1870. He was the first one to be from the South.
Turner’s home in 1899 Atlanta
Turner died in 1915 while visiting Windsor, Ontario, to attend an AME Conference. He is buried at South-View Cemetery in Atlanta.
He outlived three out of his four wives. In addition to Peacher, he married Martha Elizabeth DeWitt, Harriet Wayman, and Laura Pearl Lemon. He had fourteen children. Only four of his children lived to adulthood. They were Lincolnia Victoria King, Josephine Upshaw, John Turner, and David Turner.
Born around 1840, George Wallace was a native of Georgia and represented District 20 (Hancock, Baldwin and Washington counties) in middle Georgia in the1868 Georgia Assembly and in the Georgia State Constitutional Convention of 1867-68. Wallace was biracial and was one of the first three Black senators elected in Georgia, the other being Tunis Campbell Sr. Unseated with the other Black members, Wallace was restored to his senate seat in 1870 by an Act of Congress. Wallace served on the Republican state committee in 1868, attended the 1869 Georgia labor convention, and was a delegate to the Republican national convention of 1876. According to the 1870 census, Wallace owned $100 in personal property.
In addition to serving in the Georgia Assembly, Wallace was a founder of the Macon Union League, an organization that demonstrated unwavering support for the Union and was active in the Georgia Educational Association. He represented District 20 in the Georgia State Constitutional Convention, which was the first constitutional convention to include Black delegates and was held in Atlanta. During the convention, Wallace was an outspoken critic of the proposed move of the capital from Milledgeville to Atlanta. As a representative of District 20, which Milledgeville, Wallace proposed putting the move to a state-wide vote. Ironically, the reason the convention was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1867-1868 was because Milledgeville’s innkeepers refused to allow the Black delegates room and board for the state constitutional convention. Without lodging in Milledgeville for all delegates, US Army General John Pope ordered the convention to be held in Atlanta. The Capital was permanently moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1877.
George Linder was born in 1834 in Laurens County, Georgia. While still enslaved, he founded Strawberry AME Church (pictured above) in 1859. At the conclusion of the Civil War, he attended the 1868 Georgia Constitutional Convention held in Atlanta. He represented the Sixteenth Election District. The convention lasted from December 1867 to March 1868. Required by the federal government, the convention created the new Georgia state constitution. Linder was elected to be a state representative. After being expelled, Linder was quoted saying, “Roust us from here, and we will roust you!”
In addition to being an AME pastor, Linder helped found two other AME churches in Laurens County. He was a successful farmer owning several hundred acres in the Buckeye District, just outside of Dublin, Georgia. He and his first wife, Peggy, had seven children. He had an additional ten children with his second wife, Mary. At some point, Linder moved his family from the farm into Dublin. The Linder family home still stands today.
George Clower was born around 1831 in Virginia and became a leader in the Republican Party in Monroe County, GA after the Civil War. He attended the Colored Educational Convention in Macon, the state Black convention of 1866, and was elected to the Georgia Assembly in 1868. Clower also worked as a school teacher during Reconstruction and as a voter organizer in Monroe County. Clower noticed that Blacks were being terminated from their white employers after voting Republican, and he worked with Union General John R. Lewis of the Freedmen’s Bureau to end white retaliation against Black voters.
Clower organized “Grant Clubs” in support of former Union general Ulysses S. Grant as he ran for President. Many of these club organizers faced significant white retaliation and physical violence. A Black organizer in Dooly County, Georgia went into hiding after threats on his life, publishing an article in Augusta’s The National Republican arguing that “I have not been charged with any crime for which forty or fifty men should be after me, but simply a Republican, wanting to see the liberties of my race secured. These armed men are Democrats, sworn to kill me and all men getting up these clubs; some of them are officers of the law, Judges of the Courts, and Sheriffs. They are persecuting us under the name of keeping order and suppressing insurrections among my race.” After the Dooly County club met outside Vienna, their meeting location was surrounded, and the president was arrested by white leaders in the town.
Clower himself appealed to U.S. Grant for support, both political and financial. In a June 1872 letter to Grant supporting his election, he wrote:
“We must Go to Work right now if We Expecte to Beate the Democrats party. Dear president if you Will help me I Will go to Work Wit away no man of my Colard can do more Good for the party than I Can… I am very poor and are not abel to do much for the party the Democrate party have offar me $5000.00 and told me I can get ten $1000.00 if I Will Go in to the Feald and Go to Work for them But I am republican Expect to Live and die one. I am a Member of the Legislature and have been for 4 years. Dear sir if you Will let me have some Money I Will do as much Good to organized as a man in the sate I am also a member of the state sentral Committe. Dear sir pleas Help. me if you can right away and I Will Go to Work for the presedenal Campe Pain please let me here form you soon Excuse bad Writing as I am a colard man.”
In the 1870 census, Clower is listed as owning $1000 in real estate and $500 in personal property. He was living in Forsyth with his wife, Sarah, and their six children: Ned (15), Rosaina (12), Lucinde (11), George (8), Sarah J. (4), Payton 2. Clower became an A.M.E minister living in Memphis, TN in his later years. 10 years later in the 1880 Census, he is listed as a Preacher living in Memphis with Sarah, and their children Rosanna, Lucinda, George H, Eliza, Payton, and John.
While it is unclear where George Clower is buried, it is likely that he passed away in Memphis. Ned Frances and Payton Clowers are both buried along with Ned’s daughter at Whites Chapel Cemetery in Memphis.
Francis Henry Fyall was one of 29 African American men that made up the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of Georgia, which first met on July 4, 1868. Twenty-five of these men were identifiable as Black, per the color of their skin, but four were racially ambiguous. Fyall was one of those four.
The first method of attack by hostile white legislators was to question each representative’s eligibility to serve the county. For Fyall, claims were made that he was a resident of Macon, Georgia, which was located in Bibb County, and not an actual resident of Macon County. In later testimony, Fyall explained that he had made a home in Macon County but was run out with threats of violence against him and his wife.
The second method of attack was to question Fyall’s race. By law, the white legislators had determined Black men ineligible to hold office. Twenty-five men were immediately removed, and a committee of five white men was formed to decide the fate of the four racially ambiguous. Fyall is called to testify, and he described his upbringing; the child of two white, Charleston French parents, his mother died when he was 6 years old. Another witness was brought to the stand and described Fyall’s mother as a mulatto woman and expressed he could find 100 more witnesses who would attest to the same. It was also described in the proceedings that Fyall was sold as a slave to a Mr. Habersham of Savannah, later enslaved by Dr. M.S. Thompson, and last, the property of Judge O.A. Lochrane.
They gave their determination on September 15th, stating: “they find the said F. H. Fyall to have more than one-eighth negro blood in his veins, and in accordance with the action of this House declaring the ineligibility of negroes to hold office under the Constitution of this State, respectfully offer the Following: Resolved, That F. H. Fyall is ineligible, under the Constitution, to a seat as a member of this body, and after the passage of this resolution, that his name be dropped from the roll.”
On September 18th, F.H. Fyall presented a motion, with the support of 14 white senators, 20 white Republicans, and 28 African American representatives, titled the “Memorial to the Members of the Legislature of Georgia and Others, Relative to the Illegal Organization of that Body Under the Reconstruction Acts.” The action did almost nothing to deter his fate of expulsion.
By April of 1869, he was put on trial for perjury, related to the false swearing that he lived in Macon County. That case was short-lived, as his claim was made orally and not written. Georgia Governor Rufus Bullock promoted Fyall to train hand on freight trains for the Western and Atlantic Railroad. In September of 1869, while traveling through a rock culvert at the crossing of East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, he was knocked on the head by the culvert and killed. His corpse was sent “down the state road,” but information about his burial site has not been found.
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