Thomas E. Miller

Thomas Ezekiel Miller was born on the seventeenth of June 1849 at Ferrebeeville, in the parish of Beaufort, South Carolina, the son of an Free-Black-Beaufort-South-Carolina household of mixed Black-and-Cherokee descent — and was raised in the small Free-Black-Beaufort community of the closing decades of the antebellum period.

He was placed at the principal closing-period Beaufort-Coloured-Schools and at the principal Lincoln University at Oxford, Pennsylvania for the closing-period Lincoln-University programmes of the closing years of the principal pre-Civil-War Lincoln University-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He completed the bachelor’s at the Lincoln University in 1872 — among the closing-period principal Lincoln-University Black-Reconstruction-era closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He took the LL.B. at the principal closing-period South Carolina-state-bar admission programmes at the closing months of 1875 — and operated across the closing years of the post-1875 closing-period Beaufort-South-Carolina-Black-attorney private legal-and-political practice of the closing years of the post-1875 Reconstruction period.

He was elected to the principal South Carolina State House of Representatives from Beaufort County on the principal third of November 1874 — at the principal post-1874 closing-period South-Carolina-State-House-of-Representatives Reconstruction closing-period programmes — and to the principal closing-period South Carolina State Senate from Beaufort County in the closing months of 1880.

He was elected on the principal sixth of November 1888 to the principal United States House of Representatives from the principal Seventh Congressional District of South Carolina — at the principal post-1888 Fifty-first-Congress closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He served the principal United States House of Representatives from the principal fourth of September 1890 through the principal third of March 1891 — at the principal closing months of the Fifty-first Congress closing-period closing-period programmes — after winning the principal closing-period Fifty-first Congress closing-period contested-election vote-of-confirmation against the principal closing-period Democratic-Party-and-Conservative-Party closing-period challenger William Elliott.

He was the principal post-1890 closing-period South-Carolina-Seventh-Congressional-District-Reconstruction-Black-Congressional senior figure of the closing years of the post-1890 closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

He lost the principal 1890 South-Carolina-Seventh-Congressional-District general election to the principal Democratic-Party closing-period challenger William Elliott — at the principal post-1890 closing-period South-Carolina-Tillmanite-and-Disfranchisement-and-electoral-violence-and-vote-counting closing-period closing-period programmes.

He was named in 1896 the principal founding president of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes at Orangeburg — the principal post-1896 closing-period South-Carolina-Black-Agricultural-and-Mechanical-College-for-Negroes-Orangeburg founding closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period closing-period programmes.

The State Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes at Orangeburg subsequently became the closing-period South Carolina State University at Orangeburg.

He served the principal post-1896 closing-period founding president of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes from 1896 to 1911.

He died at Charleston, South Carolina on the eighth of April 1938 of complications of natural causes, at eighty-eight.

He is honored here as the founding president of the South Carolina State University.