Arthur W. Mitchell

Arthur W. Mitchell

Arthur tow Mitchell (* 22. December 1883 in La Fayette , Chambers County , Alabama ; † 9. May 1968 in Petersburg , Virginia ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party , of the State of Illinois in the US House of Representatives represented, and the first African American to serve in the US House of Representatives for the Democratic Party.

Life

After attending public schools studied Mitchell, son of a farmer , at the Tuskegee Institute and was followed several years a teacher at schools in rural areas of Alabama. He later served as the founding president of the Armstrong Agricultural School at West Butler , before studying law at Columbia University and Harvard University . After his admission to the bar, he took up a practice as a lawyer in Washington, DC in 1927 before opening a law firm in Chicago in 1929 . In addition, he was involved in real estate transactions. Between 1926 and 1934 he was also president of the predominantly African-American academic society Phi Beta Sigma .

His political career began during the New Deal in the 1930s, when he was first elected to the US House of Representatives as a Democratic candidate in the US Congressional election in 1934 . In this he represented as the successor to the Afro-American Republican Oscar Stanton De Priest from January 3, 1935 to January 3, 1943 the first congressional constituency of Illinois. He was thereby the first African American Congressman for the Democrats. During this time he was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in both 1936 and 1940 .

During his tenure in Congress, he proposed bills against lynching . After he was later forced on a train journey because of his skin color to change to a train compartment that was not reserved for white passengers before entering the state of Arkansas , he brought a lawsuit against the Illinois Central Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad before the US Supreme Court . This ruled in a judgment that the type of racial segregation practiced by the two railway companies according to the principle of Separate but equal violates the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 .

After he had renounced a new candidacy in 1942, he resumed his work as a lawyer and was also involved in the civil rights movement and through public lectures. He later settled on a farm in Dinwiddie County , which he called the Land of a Thousand Roses , and where he was buried after his death.

Background literature

• Dennis S. Nordin: The New Deal's Black Congressman: A Life of Arthur Wergs Mitchell , University of Missouri Press, 1997

Web links

• Arthur W. Mitchell in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)