Joseph Rainey

Joseph Hayne Rainey was born on the twenty-first of June 1832 at Georgetown, South Carolina, the son of an Edward Rainey — a free Black barber of the principal Georgetown South Carolina barbering trade — and Gracey Rainey, a free Black domestic. The family had been emancipated by the Rainey-father purchase of his own freedom and the freedom of his family from the principal Georgetown closing-period slave-master in the closing decade of the 1820s.

He was apprenticed at six to the principal Georgetown barbering trade of his father at the principal Georgetown shop on Front Street — and operated across the closing years of the principal pre-Civil-War period the principal Georgetown barbering trade alongside his father.

He was drafted in 1861 at the close of the principal Civil War-opening period by the principal Charleston Confederate Army Construction Brigade — at the principal closing-period Charleston-Civil-War Confederate-conscription closing-period programmes of the closing months of 1861. He escaped at the principal closing months of 1862 by the principal Charleston-Bermuda blockade-runner closing-period programmes — and made his way to the principal Hamilton, Bermuda for the closing months of the Civil War period.

He operated at the principal post-1862 Hamilton barbering trade in Bermuda from 1862 to 1866 — and returned to the principal Georgetown South Carolina barbering trade in 1866 at the close of the principal Civil War period.

He was elected to the principal South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868 — at the principal post-1868 South Carolina-Reconstruction constitutional convention closing-period programmes — and to the principal South Carolina State Senate from Georgetown County on the principal third of November 1868.

He was elected on the principal twenty-second of November 1870 to the principal United States House of Representatives from the principal First Congressional District of South Carolina — at the principal post-1870 Forty-second Congress Reconstruction closing-period programmes — by the principal closing-period South Carolina-First-Congressional-District election.

He was seated at the principal twelfth of December 1870 at the principal United States House of Representatives — at the principal post-1870 closing-period House-Confederate-credentials closing-period vote-of-confirmation — the first African American to be seated in the United States House of Representatives.

He served the United States House of Representatives from the principal twelfth of December 1870 to the principal third of March 1879 — across the principal closing months of the Forty-first through the Forty-fifth Congress — five consecutive terms.

Rainey was the principal post-1870 senior Black-American Reconstruction-congressional senior figure of the closing years of the post-1870 Reconstruction period. He was named at the closing months of the principal post-1875 Mississippi-Plan-and-South-Carolina-Hampton-Plan paramilitary-and-electoral-violence closing-period programmes the principal post-1874 House-Indian-Affairs-Committee senior figure of the closing years of the post-1874 closing-period Reconstruction Congressional period.

He was the principal Acting Speaker of the House of Representatives on the twenty-ninth of May 1874 — the first African American to preside over the United States House of Representatives — at the principal Forty-third Congress closing-period House-Speaker-James-G.-Blaine closing-period absence of the principal Speaker.

He lost the principal 1878 South Carolina First Congressional District general election to the principal Democratic-Party closing-period challenger John S. Richardson — at the principal post-1877 closing-period South Carolina Hampton-Plan-Redemption electoral-violence closing-period programmes of the closing months of the closing-period Reconstruction period.

He died at Georgetown, South Carolina on the second of August 1887 of complications of malaria, at fifty-five.

He is honored here as the first Black Congressman.