Central Texas Black lawmakers shaped state during Reconstruction era

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - During Reconstruction, the turbulent period after the American Civil War focused on reintegrating Southern states into the Union, slavery had been abolished and African Americans were free to build communities. For the men, they got the right to vote.

With that came the election of 52 Blacks who served on the state and even federal levels.

The State if Texas is now working with local historical commissions to individually recognize these men in the districts they served with markers.

Silas Cotton supported Calvert as county seat

In late 1869, voters from Robertson, Leon and Freestone counties elected Silas Cotton, sometimes recorded as Giles Cotton, to the House of the Twelfth Texas Legislature, where he served for three years.

He was a former slave. He was on the Agriculture and Stock Raising Committee and Privileges and Elections Committee. He supported legislation that made Calvert, where he lived, the Robertson County seat.

David Medlock Jr. sought taxes to build local jail

David Medlock Jr. represented Limestone, Falls, and McLennan counties during the same session. He won election to the Texas House where he served for three years and was on the Federal Relations Committee.

He sponsored a bill that incorporated his hometown, Springfield, and sought the return of taxes to Limestone County to build a jail. He also joined the Radical Republican Association.

Sheppard Mullins became convention vice president

Sheppard Mullins, a former slave who called McLennan County home, was tapped to serve on the board that registered voters during Reconstruction. He served on the Platform Committee of the first Republican Party Convention.

He served in the Constitutional Convention of 1868-69 and later served a four-year term as a McLennan County commissioner. Mullins became a vice president of the convention.

Mullins campaigned for and won a place in the House of Representatives in the Twelfth Legislature. He strongly supported Republican efforts to protect the interests of Black people.

That included establishing the Texas State Police and a militia to control violence. He also voted for a state system of education available to all citizens and introduced a bill to extend the Waco city limits. Mullins is buried at the First Street Cemetery in Waco.

D.W. Burley was Civil War veteran

D.W. Burley represented Robertson, Leon, and Freestone counties in the Twelfth Texas Legislature. He was a free Black man before the end of slavery and in 1864 was a captain in a battalion of Black soldiers that defended St. Louis from Confederate raiders.

He arrived in Texas in 1865 and later organized a debating society for Blacks. He was elected to the Texas House.

John Mitchell was wealthiest Black legislator

John Mitchell was a former slave whose property holdings, valued at $3,750, made him the wealthiest Black member of the Twelfth Legislature. Mitchell represented Burleson, Brazos and Milam counties in the Texas House of Representatives.

He sat on the Public Land Committee. He joined the Radical Republican Association, organized to uphold Governor Edmund J. Davis’s vetoes of railroad-development bills during the Twelfth Legislature.

Mitchell represented Burleson and Washington counties in the Fourteenth Legislature and was a member of the Penitentiary Committee. He was also a delegate elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1875. He ran for a seat in the United States House and lost.

Ralph Long proposed dividing Texas

Ralph Long was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868-69. It is believed he was the son of a white father and a Black mother. It’s unclear if he was a slave.

Long was elected to the convention by voters from Limestone, Navarro, and Hill counties. He voted for a proposal that would have divided Texas into more than one state and unsuccessfully proposed a resolution that voided debts incurred with Confederate currency, or that resulted from the purchase of slaves. He supported measures that would have prevented voter fraud and intimidation.

Delegates approved Long’s resolution prohibiting firearms in the convention meeting hall.

Monument honors lawmakers

In March 2010, the state unveiled a monument dedicated to these Black Reconstruction lawmakers. It sits in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.

A few of these Central Texas men now have markers of their own in the districts they served. The others are to come.

All of these men and the majority of Blacks were members of the Republican Party during Reconstruction because the party, back then, championed citizenship, civil rights and suffrage for freed men. Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation which abolished slavery, was head of the Republican Party.