Blanche Bruce

Blanche Bruce
United States Senator from Mississippi
In office March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1881
Preceded by	Henry R. Pease
Succeeded by	James Z. George
Personal details
Born	Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841-03-01)March 1, 1841 Farmville, Virginia, U.S.
Died	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Josephine Willson Bruce
Profession	Politician, teacher, farmer

Blanche Kelso Bruce (March 1, 1841 – March 17, 1898) was a U.S. politician who represented Mississippi as a Republican in the U.S. Senate from 1875 to 1881; of mixed race, he was the first elected black senator to serve a full term. Hiram R. Revels, also of Mississippi, was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate, but did not serve a full term.

Life and Politics

File:BKBruce-house WashingtonDC.jpg

Bruce's house at 909 M Street NW in Washington, D.C. was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975

Bruce was born into slavery in 1841 in Prince Edward County, Virginia near Farmville to Polly Bruce, an enslaved African-American woman who served as a domestic slave. His father was her master, Pettis Perkinson, a white Virginia planter. Bruce was treated comparatively well by his father, who educated him together with a legitimate half-brother. When Blanche Bruce was young, he played with his half-brother. His father legally freed Blanche and arranged for an apprenticeship so he could learn a trade.

File:Blanche K. Bruce Summary of Accomplishments through 1890.tif

Summary of Mr. Bruce's accomplishments through 1890.

Bruce taught school and attended Oberlin College in Ohio for two years. He next worked as a steamboat porter on the Mississippi River. In 1864, he moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he established a school for black children.

During Reconstruction, Bruce moved to Mississippi, where he became a wealthy landowner of several thousand acres in the Mississippi Delta. He was appointed to the positions of Tallahatchie County registrar of voters and tax assessor before winning an election for sheriff in Bolivar County. He later was elected to other county positions, including tax collector and supervisor of education, while he also edited a local newspaper.

In February 1874, Bruce was elected by the state legislature to the Senate as a Republican, becoming the second African American to serve in the upper house of Congress. On February 14, 1879, Bruce presided over the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American (and the only former slave) to do so. In 1880, James Z. George was elected to succeed Bruce.

At the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Bruce became the first African American to win any votes for national office at a major party's nominating convention, winning 8 votes for vice president. The presidential nominee that year was James A. Garfield, who won election.

File:Blanche Bruce For Vice President.tif

May 28, 1880 Herald of Kansas article (page 2) promoting the Blaine - Bruce ticket.

In 1881, Bruce was appointed by President Garfield to be the Register of the Treasury, becoming the first African American to have his signature featured on U.S. paper currency.

Bruce was appointed as the District of Columbia recorder of deeds in 1890–93, which was expected to yield fees of up to $30,000 per year. He was appointed as Register of the Treasury a second time in 1897 by President William McKinley and served until his death in 1898.

Relationship with other African Americans

On the Bruce plantation in Mississippi, black sharecroppers lived in "flimsy wooden shacks," working in the same oppressive conditions as on white-owned estates.

After his Senate term expired, Bruce remained in Washington, D.C., where he secured a succession of Republican patronage jobs and stumped for Republican candidates across the country. There, he also acquired a large townhouse and summer home, and presided over black high society.

Marriage and Family

On June 24, 1878, Bruce married Josephine Beal Willson (1853–February 15, 1923), a fair-skinned socialite of Cleveland, Ohio amid great publicity; the couple traveled to Europe for a four-month honeymoon.

Their only child, Roscoe Conkling Bruce was born in 1879. He was named for New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, Bruce's mentor in the Senate. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Blanche Bruce on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In the fall of 1899, Josephine, accepted the position of Lady Principal at Tuskegee. While visiting Josephine at Tuskegee, during the summer break of his senior year at Harvard, Roscoe won a fan in Booker T. Washington and secured a position at Tuskegee as head of the Academic Department.

See also

• African-American Civil Rights Movement (1865–95)

Bibliography

• Rabinowitz, Howard N., ed. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (1982), pp 1-38.

External links

• Blanche Bruce at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2009-03-26
• Biography and Joe Kelso.Tripod
• Review of The Senator and the Socialite

United States Senate
Preceded by Henry R. Pease	U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Mississippi March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1881 Served alongside: James L. Alcorn and Lucius Q. C. Lamar	Succeeded by James Z. George
Political offices
Preceded by Glenni William Scofield	Register of the Treasury May 21, 1881 to June 5, 1885	Succeeded by William Starke Rosecrans
Preceded by James Fount Tillman	Register of the Treasury December 3, 1897 to March 17, 1898	Succeeded by Judson Whitlocke Lyons