P.B.S Pinchback, was the first Black governor of the United States. Born Pinckney Benton Stewart in May 1837 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, his parents were Eliza Stewart, a former slave, and William Pinchback, a planter and her former master. They lived together as husband and wife as interracial marriage was forbidden by state law. She had borne six by that point and two had survived. She had four more children with Pinchback, all born into freedom under Georgia law because she was free. William Pinchback, who also had a legal White family, freed Pinchback’s mother, from slavery and her two surviving children in 1836, just before he moved his family from Virginia to Mississippi. On the way to that new home, Pinckney was born. Pinckney was the eighth child born of their relationship. Shortly after Pinckney's birth, his father William purchased a much larger plantation in Mississippi, and moved his entire family there.
Pinckney Stewart, as he was then called, was a "natural" (or illegitimate) son of his father, was brought up in relatively affluent surroundings. He and his four siblings were raised as White, the union of a White man and Black woman who lived together openly despite the rumblings of their neighbors. When he was nine, Pinckney and an older brother were sent off to a Cincinnati high school to continue their education. But two years later, in 1848, the boys had to return home—their father was dying. On the death of William Pinchback, Pinckney and the four other children in the family lost more than their father. William Pinchback's relatives disinherited his mulatto common-law wife and children and claimed his property in Mississippi. Fearful that the Pinchbacks might try to claim her five children as slaves, Eliza Stewart fled with her children to Cincinnati in the free state of Ohio in order to avoid their enslavement by William’s heirs.
Twelve-year-old Pinckney became responsible for supporting the family. He signed on as a cabin boy for canal boats at a salary of eight dollars per month. After a few years he graduated to the riverboats, where he met some famous riverboat gamblers of the era. His quick study as a gambler afforded him opportunities to enhance his meager income as a cabin boy, deck hand, and steward. He soon became a personal manservant for the white gamblers, who taught him the tricks of the trade. While they fleeced high-paying customers in riverboat staterooms, Pinchback ran games for the Black deckhands and crews of the boats. For a while he resided in Terre Haute, Indiana, working as a hotel porter. During that time he was still known as Pinckney B. Stewart, as he had not yet adopted the surname Pinchback. In 1860 at the age of 23, Stewart married Emily Hawthorne, a free woman of color, from Memphis, Tennessee.
The Civil War began the following year, and Pinckney decided to fight on the side of the Union. In 1862 he ran the Confederate blockade on the Mississippi to reach New Orleans, which had just been captured by the Union Army. Despite being able to pass as White, Pinckney did not hide his Black ancestry. He raised several companies for the Union's all-Black 1st Louisiana Native Guards Regiment, known as the Corps d’Afrique, of which he was named captain. He was one of the Union Army's few commissioned officers of African American ancestry. Like Stewart, the officers were mostly of mixed race. But even in this corps—soon being run by White officers, Blacks were treated poorly. A minority of men were Louisiana Creoles of color, part of the educated class; most were runaway slaves. He became Company Commander of Company A, 2nd Louisiana Regiment Native Guard Infantry, made up mostly of refugee slaves.
In the years following, he made several attempts to move up the Union Army’s chain of command but was thwarted because of his race. Passed over twice for promotion from Captain to Major, and tired of the prejudice he encountered from White officers, Stewart resigned his commission in 1863. Pinckney rebelled against the military environment and against general conditions in civilian New Orleans. He ignored the markings on streetcars cordoned off for Black passengers only and rode the cars designated for Whites. Dejected and angered, he decided to take his family back north to Cincinnati to visit his mother. Pinckney remained there until the war ended in 1865. After the war, Pinckney Benton Stewart and his wife moved to Alabama. Even though the war was over and African Americans had been proclaimed free, oppositional southern political forces were still intimidating enough to prevent elections in Black districts.
Pinckney read newspaper accounts of goings-on in his home state: when the governor of Louisiana convened a constitutional convention on July 30, 1866, hundreds of people entered the convention to participate; a mob stormed the meeting and opened fire. Between 38 and 48 people, mostly Blacks, were killed. Following this incident, Pinckney began speaking out in Alabama, addressing groups of men and women and effectively starting his political career. In 1867 Pinckney returned to New Orleans with his family and began his political career in earnest. Now a committed Republican, he organized the Fourth Ward Republican Club in New Orleans and served as a delegate to the convention that established a new constitution for Louisiana. His orations helped win him election to the party's Central Executive Committee. Soon after Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868.
It was here in New Orleans, that Stewart took his father's surname, Pinchback. He was elected as senate president pro tempore; seven of 36 seats in the Senate were held by men of color. The House had 42 representatives of African American descent, comprising half the seats. At the time, the populations of African Americans, including former free people of color, and Whites in the state were nearly equal. A few days after his election, an attempt was made on his life. Pinchback was walking along the streets of New Orleans when he was shot at by S.C. Morgan, a mulatto. Pinchback returned fire and neither man was seriously injured. But Pinchback—and indeed all Blacks were lambasted in the press as being unfit to hold office as a result of the scuffle. During the legislative session, Pinchback successfully proposed a measure that legally recognized the marriages of Black men and women. He also proposed a bill that would impose a $100 fine on any person running a public accommodation that refused to give equal treatment to Whites and African Americans.
In May of 1868, Pinchback attended the Republican National Convention in Chicago to witness the presidential nomination of Ulysses S. Grant. Upon returning to legislative business in January of 1869, he again pushed for civil rights measures. Spurred by his vocalness, an all-encompassing civil rights bill was passed—but the law never enforced. As his legislative work prospered, Pinchback began to engage in business. He also started a weekly newspaper, the "Louisianian", of which he became sole owner in 1870. Pinchback continued to maintain his many concerns but aimed his sights at a higher office, that of United States senator. At that time in U.S. history, U.S. senators were elected by state legislators. Pinchback lost the race to a White candidate championed by Governor Warmoth. He charged voting fraud. The newly convened legislature agreed and allowed him to take his oath of office. Although he disagreed with the Governor on many issues, he did not join the political forces of the Governor’s main opponent, Oscar Dunn, the first elected Black lieutenant governor of a U.S state.
Upon the death of Dunn, in a bid to thwart Democratic control of the state, Pinchback's name was put forth by the Warmoth faction as Dunn's replacement, and the senate elected him by a narrow margin in December of that year. The lieutenant governorship also brought with it the post of president pro tempore of the state senate. As Senate president pro tempore, in 1871, Pinchback succeeded to the position of acting lieutenant governor. In this position, Pinchback wielded considerable power, and he became a major player in the 1872 elections, which included a presidential race. As could be predicted, Warmoth and Pinchback were on opposite sides of the presidential race, in which Pinchback supported the Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant. Grant’s supporters felt that Louisiana’s election laws were unfavorable to their candidate, but they could not get Governor Warmoth to sign an election law reform bill.
Earlier, in 1871, the Republican Party in Louisiana had fractured, ultimately splitting into two separate party organizations. One of those organizations began to build alliances with the Democratic Party, further complicating Louisiana’s political landscape. After a series of complicated maneuvers, there were two candidates in the 1872 gubernatorial elections: William Pitt Kellogg, the candidate for the “Regular” Republicans, and John McEnerny, the candidate for the Democrats and the Liberal Republicans. As the election drew near, Pinchback aligned himself with the Regular Republicans, while Henry Warmoth, the outgoing governor, sided with the Liberal Republicans. Warmoth’s faction outmaneuvered Pinchback’s and replaced the election board with Warmoth’s supporters, who declared McEnerny the winner. The election results were disputed by Pinchback’s supporters.
On December 9, 1872, before the legislature, Pinchback claimed that Warmoth had offered him $50,000 to influence the legislature. In 1872, the legislature filed impeachment charges against the incumbent Republican governor, Henry Clay Warmoth over disputes over certifying returns of the disputed gubernatorial election. State law required that Warmoth step aside until his case was tried. While impeachment preceedings were in progress against Henry Clay Warmoth, Pinchback served as acting governor, thus becoming the first Black governor of the United States. P.B.S. Pinchback took the oath on December 9, 1872 and served as acting governor of Louisiana until the end of Warmoth's term. Depending on whether the first and last days are counted inclusively, historians describe his tenure as lasting either 35 or 36 days. Pinchback became the recipient of vicious hate mail from across the country as well as more local threats on his own life. As governor, ten acts of the Legislature became law during his time. Warmoth was not convicted, and the charges were eventually dropped. Republican William Kellogg was declared governor and was sworn in on January 13, 1873, ending Pinchback's brief but historical executive stint.
Pinchback’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1872, just BEFORE he became governor, was still in effect, but different factions claimed different election returns. After the contested 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election, Republican legislators elected Pinchback to the United States Senate. However, due to the controversy over the 1872 elections in the state, which were challenged by White Democrats, Pinchback was never seated in Congress. Pinchback was elected to the U.S. House in 1873, but was never seated. For two years bickering and corruption kept him from officially holding congressional office, although he did receive his official salary. The campaigns and elections were surrounded by violence, turmoil and intimidation. In Louisiana, Republicans and Democrats often submitted competing election returns, each claiming victory. Congress had to decide which candidates were legitimately elected.
The political climate had changed dramatically. Support for Reconstruction was fading, and Pinchback's claims lost momentum. Congress, then dominated by Democrats, finally seated his opponents. This period marked the beginning of a reversal of the political gains which African Americans had achieved since the war's end. The White League, a paramilitary group with chapters across the state beginning in 1874, openly disrupted Republican gatherings and intimidated Blacks to repress their vote. Overall, the mid- to late 1870s marked an acceleration of the reversal of the political gains that Blacks in Louisiana had achieved since the end of the Civil War. In 1877, Democrats fully regained control of the state legislature after the withdrawal of federal troops, as a result of a national Democratic compromise marking the end of Reconstruction. Republican Blacks continued to be elected to state and local offices, but elections were accompanied by violence and fraud. It was the beginning of a reversal of the political gains African Americans had achieved since the war's end.
Pinchback served as a delegate to the 1879 Louisiana constitutional convention, where he helped gain support for the founding of Southern University, which was established in 1880 in New Orleans. It relocated to Baton Rouge in 1914. Between 1882 and 1885, Pinchback served as surveyor of customs in New Orleans his last politically significant position. In 1885, Pinchback studied law in New Orleans at Straight University, later known as Dillard University. He was admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1886, but he never practiced. During this time, Pinchback noted with alarm the many new segregation laws that were springing up around the South. In 1890 he was elected chairman of the American Citizens’ Equal Rights Association, the goal of which was to preserve equality among all citizens. Later Pinchback moved with his family to New York City, where he worked as a Marshal. He moved his family to Washington, D.C. in 1895 and stayed there for the rest of his life, speaking out against the increasingly restrictive “separate but equal” laws that were being written around the nation. He died there December 21, 1921, and was accompanied to New Orleans for burial by his grandson, writer and Harlem Renaissance shining light Jean Toomer.