Stoned-Campbell Disciple

“For the Love of Christ Compels Me” (Saint Paul)
“Justice and Justice alone you shall pursue” (Holy Spirit thru Moses)

Do you know who Blanche Bruce was? If not, that is why we need Black History Month.

By the time I moved to Mississippi in 1997, I knew who Blanche Bruce was from an anthology I bought in New Orleans called Crossing the Danger Water edited by Mullane. But I did not know much. As with Hiram Revels, not a person knew who he was (except Ernest Hargrove). After the Civil War it looked like Mississippi could be the leader in a new vision for America. But it was not to be.

BLANCHE BRUCE (1841-1898)

Blanche Bruce’s mother, Polly, was born to a slave woman who had been raped by a slave trader. She became the “property” of Lemuel Bruce who owned a plantation 60 miles west of Richmond, Virginia. Polly was a house slave. She would have eleven children, all of them fathered by white “masters.” Her first five children were fathered by Lemuel. When he died, he willed Polly to his white daughter Rebecca who married Pettis Parkinson. Polly would end up having six children fathered by Pettis, one of whom was Blanche Bruce born in 1841.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Blanche escaped slavery and ended up in Kansas. While hiding in Kansas he took up residence in Lawrence. He was in the town when Quantrill’s Raiders attacked the town on August 21, 1863 massacring almost 200 men and boys. Bruce survived by hiding in a thicket.

Following the War he entered Oberlin College and then migrated to Mississippi. He earned a reputation of being a savvy business man purchasing a 900 acres of land. He became a newspaper editor and then elected sheriff of Bolivar County in 1871.

SENATOR BRUCE (1874-1881)

In 1874, Bruce became the first black man to be elected to the Senate for a full term. Mississippi had sent Hiram Revels in 1870 to finish out the vacated terms by the treasonous Jefferson Davis. Blanch Bruce became the first full term African American to serve as a senator. And the first two black senators in American history came from Mississippi! And no one (any white person) I met in Mississippi had ever heard of either.

On March 5, 1875 new senators were welcomed into the chambers, escorted by the senior senator of their state arm in arm to stand before Vice President Henry Wilson to take the oath of office. When Bruce’s name was read, senior senator James Lusk Alcorn, of Mississippi, refused to stand and escort Blanche. A serious insult and breach of protocol. Bruce resigned himself to walk alone before the Vice President. As he began a voice rang in the chamber, “If I may, Mr. Bruce.” Roscoe Conkling, senator from New York took Blanche’s arm in his and escorted him.

With no help from his home state, Conkling became a mentor to Bruce. He ensured he was placed on important committees and had a genuine say in the Senate. They became life long friends. Later Bruce, and his wife Josephine, would name their only child Roscoe Conkling Bruce.

Senator Bruce was a constant advocate for the poor and vocal critic of racial violence. The Ku Klux Klan and the “Red Shirts” were terrorizing many. Senator Bruce stressed education and economic development in one of the poorest states in America, for blacks and poor whites. He insisted that 14th and 15th Amendments be enforced.

But it was a losing battle. Even as Bruce took office what has been called “The Mississippi Plan” of 1874 was coming into being. The beginning of “Redemption” as it was termed. What Mississippi could have been evaporated. The Mississippi Plan called for the elimination of the black electorate through any means necessary thus removing the “horror” of a Hiram Revels, John Lynch, and Blanche Bruce being in a white man’s government.

December 7 was a Day of Infamy long before Peal Harbor. December 7, 1874, Black Republicans gathered in Vicksburg for learning about civic rights, laws, how to vote, etc. They were attacked by whites and over 150 African Americans were murdered that day.

September 4, 1875 a similar massacre in Clinton took place. Black Republicans gathered with the same results. Over 50 were murdered.

President Grant sent in the Army to reestablish control but the soldiers did not stay. Ultimately, Mississippi led the Compromise of 1877 where Republicans surrendered the South back to the racists for control of the Presidency. Black voters were abandoned essentially until our own day. Frederick Douglass declared that the Republican Party had become the “party of money rather than the party of morals.“

Bruce was well aware of what was happening not only in Mississippi but across the old Confederacy. By 1879 a lynching spree was taking place across the South. Not just large scale massacres as in Vicksburg and Clinton but individual African Americans were murdered with impunity to intimidate all of them, especially in terms of civil rights. He stood up in the chamber in March 1876 and delivered an impassioned speech for simple justice. In such an environment, Bruce was not reelected in 1880.

BRUCE ON THE MONEY

In 1880, Bruce became one of six candidates to be the Vice President of the United States. James A. Garfield was elected and Chester Arthur became VP. Garfield appointed Blanche Bruce to be the United States Registrar of the Department of Treasury. The irony here is that every time the “Redeemers” in Mississippi (and across the South) spent a dollar, they exchanged money with the signature of Blanche K. Bruce on it. Bruce would have numerous federal appointments under various presidents until his death in 1898.

COLORED MAN?

Blanche Bruce was described by newspapers of the day as a “colored man.” Perhaps with his mother’s life long history, and his own, in his head he protested. He said, often, “I am a Negro and proud of it!”

The Bruce family went on to become some of the most influential families in America. Biographer and historian Lawrence Otis Graham went so far as to call the Bruce family “America’s first Black Dynasty.” Why had I never heard of him (them!) until 1996? Why is it that most Americans today have no idea who this man was and no idea of the family legacy. This beloved is why we need Black History Month.

P. S. Read Lawrence Otis Graham’s The Senator and The Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty.

“You Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall set you Free” (Jesus)

For Shalom

This entry was posted on Monday, March 25th, 2024 at 7:10 pm and is filed under American Empire, Black History, Bobby's World, Love, Politics, Race Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.