On This Day In Alabama History: Congress’ First Black Democrat Was Born

By Graydon Rust Alabama 200

December 22, 1883

U.S. Rep. Arthur Wergs Mitchell, the first black member of Congress to serve as a Democrat, was born in Roanoke. Mitchell studied a year each at the Tuskegee Institute and the Snow Hill Institute in Wilcox County before opening several schools for African-Americans in the Black Belt. Mitchell’s schools, however, all quickly closed or burned, and he fled the state to avoid several lawsuits for defrauding poor blacks. As a U.S. representative from Chicago, he proved valuable to his party by recruiting blacks away from the Republican Party as he promoted the idea that African-Americans in the South were more fortunate than those in the North.

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