John R. Lynch #1420
$ 8.00
Caption from poster__
John R. Lynch
They were faithful and true to you then; they are no less so today.
And yet they ask no special favors as a class; they ask no special
protection as a race. They feel that they purchased their inheritance,
when upon the battlefields of this country they watered the tree
of liberty with the precious blood that flowed from their
loyal veins. They ask no favors, they desire; and must have;
an equal chance in the race of life.
John R. Lynch ( former slave and member of the U.S.
Congress) speaking in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
John R. Lynch 1847 - 1939 Born a slave in Concordia Parish, LA., Lynch was freed during the American Civil War and settled in Natchez, MS. There he learned the photography business, attended night school, and in 1869 entered public life as justice of the peace for Natchez County. In November 1869, Lynch was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, and reelected in 1871. Although Blacks never were in the majority in the Mississippi legislature, Lynch was chosen speaker of the House in 1872. That same year he was elected to Congress, and reelected in 1874. But by 1876, Re- construction was over, and Lynch was defeated for a third term. In 1880 he ran again and was declared the loser, but he con- tested the decision and eventually was returned to his congress- ional seat. In the House he backed civil-rights legislation. Lynch retired to his plantation in Adams County, Mississippi, in 1883. In 1889, he returned to public office when President Benjamin Harrison appointed him fourth auditor of the U.S. Treasury for the Navy Department. Always active in the Republican Party, Lynch served as a delegate to the national Republican Conventions of 1872, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1900. He was temporary chairman in 1884--the first Black to preside over a national convention of a major U.S. political party. In his book, "The Facts of Reconstruction" (1913), Lynch attempted to dispel the erroneous notion that Southern state governments after the Civil War were under the control of Blacks. After the Civil War, John Lynch served in the Mississippi. He was prominent in Republican Party affairs of the 1870s and 1880s. He died Nov. 2, 1939,
