Barrister Twlight also founded Brownington Academy in Vermont. Jane Steele.
-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Finkelman <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Jun 10, 2008 1:39 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [VA-HIST] First black elected officails
>
>The first black elected offical in US was Wentworth Cheswill, a justice
>of the peace in New Hampshire in 1768.
>Or if you prefer a state, Alexander L. Twilight was elected to the
>Vermont Legislature in 1836. He is also probably the first black in the
>US to earn a college degree — Middlebury, 1823. I have not found any
>others, but there may be some out there.
>
>Paul Finkelman
>President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
> and Public Policy
>Albany Law School
>80 New Scotland Avenue
>Albany, New York 12208-3494
>
>518-445-3386
>[log in to unmask]
>
>>>> Paul Finkelman <[log in to unmask]> 6/9/2008 4:42 PM >>>
>
>
>LOUISA, Va. -- Planted in the lawn at the courthouse on West Main
>Street
>here is a gray historical marker that draws little attention. It
>proudly
>proclaims that the country's first black elected official was native
>son
>John Mercer Langston, born in this central Virginia county, the son of
>a
>wealthy white planter and an emancipated slave of Indian and black
>ancestry.
>
>History seems to whisper more often than it shouts. Langston was one of
>the
>most extraordinary men of the 19th century, and yet his achievements
>--
>prominent abolitionist, first black congressman from Virginia, founder
>of
>what would become the Howard University law school -- have largely
>been
>forgotten. In the arc of American advancement toward black political
>empowerment, Langston represents the symbolic beginning. Elected
>township
>clerk of Brownhelm, Ohio, on April 2, 1855, he became, by many
>accounts, the
>first "Negro" elevated to public office by popular vote.
>
>It took 153 years to get from John Mercer Langston to Barack Hussein
>Obama,
>a journey that endured the dashed hopes of Reconstruction and the
>oppression
>of Jim Crow to arrive at a moment that has stunned even those
>optimistic
>about America's racial progress. An underdog black politician has
>secured a
>major party's presidential nomination in a country where less than 4
>percent
>of its elected officials are African Americans?
>
>Posted on HNN - History News Network, Monday, June 9, 2008
>
>--
>Jon Kukla
>www.JonKukla.com
>
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>
>
>J. K. Brandau
> Murder At Green Springs:
> The True Story of the Hall Case,
> Firestorm of Prejudices
> http://www.murderatgreensprings.com
>
>
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Lillian Jane Steele
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