Jeremiah Haralson

In 1895, Jeremiah Haralson was a former politician, powerful orator, and debater who served in the Alabama House of Representatives and Senate and the U.S. Congress, when he disappeared from history. Image Credit: africanamericanancestry.com On April 1, 1846, Jeremiah Haralson was born into slavery on a plantation in Muscogee County near Columbus, Georgia. In 1859, at fourteen, Haralson was sold twice before he was purchased by John Haralson, a lawyer from Selma, Alabama. On December 2, 1865, when Alabama ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, Haralson gained his freedom at the age of nineteen. Upon gaining his freedom, Haralson taught himself how to read and write.  In 1868, Haralson campaigned for Democratic presidential candidates Horatio Seymour and Francis Blair. Seymour and Blair ran a racist campaign: the campaign's slogan was “This Is A White Man’s Government; Let White Men Rule.” Haralson, known for being a superb orator, later claimed to give speeches on Seymour’s behalf for money. He also said that when he concluded his addresses, he mingled with African American voters in the crowds, urging them to elect Republican presidential nominee Ulysses S. Grant, who pledged to protect voting rights. By 1869, Haralson became a member of the Republican Party after Democrats aligned themselves with former Confederates, alienating African American voters. In New Orleans, in a meeting with prominent African American politicians, he stated that if he were forced to choose between Democrats and Republicans, he would choose the latter, given their support for African American suffrage and Emancipation. Nonetheless, the following year he was elected as an Independent to the Alabama House of Representatives, beginning his tendency to run as a third-party candidate.  On June 1, 1870, Haralson married Ellen Norwood. In 1871, they had a son named Henry. Haralson was elected to preside over the Republican Party's First District convention, which nominated Benjamin S. Turner, the first African American from Alabama elected to Congress, who later became Haralson’s political ally.  From 1871 to 1873,  Haralson served as president of the Alabama Negro Labor Union. In 1872, he shepherded a civil rights bill through the Senate, after being elected as a Twenty-First District Alabama State Republican senator.  In 1874, Haralson won 54 percent of votes in the general election in Alabama’s First District. He served on the Committee on Public Expenditures of the 44th Congress where he introduced legislation to use proceeds from the sale of public lands for education. Though Haralson fought valiantly, his five proposed bills never passed. Nonetheless, Haralson leveraged his African American heritage to gain political support from voters who feared the possibility of a Southern race war. He also supported the policies of President Ulysses Grant and his Civil Rights Act of 1875.  Throughout his political career, Haralson had a contentious relationship with his fellow Republicans, who viewed Haralson with suspicion because of his former Democratic ties. They even accused him of accepting a $50 bribe from railroad officials and stealing a $100 bale of cotton, though these claims were never substantiated.  In 1876, the Alabama state legislature redrew Haralson's district. The district redraw moved Selma from the First to the Fourth District and increased the African American electorate to nearly 65 percent. James Rapier, a freeborn African American candidate challenged Haralson in the primary for Alabama's Fourth District and won. Haralson soon reentered the general election as an Independent, beginning his decade-long attempt to regain his congressional seat. In the 1876 primary, Democrat Charles Shelley, a former Confederate general, won the seat with 38 percent of the vote after the Republican vote was split between two candidates.  In 1878, Haralson received the Republican nomination for his former seat but had too little support from African American voters. Democratic incumbent Shelley won reelection with 55 percent of the vote, though Haralson contested the election, stating that thousands of votes had not been counted. Shelley's supporters attempted to have Haralson and his lawyer arrested. While traveling between Montgomery and Selma, he was attacked by an armed mob and ordered to leave the state. Haralson fled to the District of Columbia, where he submitted a written complaint to the Congressional Record about the incident, but the Committee on Elections never ruled on Haralson's case. In 1879, Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Haralson as a clerk at Baltimore's federal customs house. He later became a clerk at the Department of the Interior and then worked at the Pension Bureau in Washington, D.C., from 1882 to 1884. He ran as an Independent Republican in his final bid for Congress in 1884 and defeated his white opponents, Ben DeLemos and George Henry Craig. He lost the election to Democrat Alexander Davidson. His absence in Alabama’s Fourth District likely eroded voter support.  Haralson settled in Selma after the election. In 1885, he enrolled his son, Henry, at Tuskegee Institute. In a December letter, Booker T. Washington, the head of Tuskegee, wrote that Henry’s enrollment was an example of “a better class of families than we had represented before.” Haralson received the letter in a Selma jailhouse after being charged with selling “mortgaged cotton” by authorities.  Haralson’s crime though was criticizing Shelley who was up for federal appointment. In January of 1886, he was released after writing a letter that denied his intention to defame Shelley.  By 1891, Haralson had relocated to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to work as a pension agent. Since the end of the American Civil War, a prosperous African American community had thrived in Pine Bluff. Wiley Jones, once held as a slave, had become a wealthy and successful businessman who ran Pine Bluff’s transit lines. Ferd Havis was also a local Republican leader and a successful businessman. Both men were active in national politics. Haralson may have met Havis at the 1880 Republican National Convention.  In an 1898 pamphlet, David Gaines wrote that “It is highly probable that some of the wealthiest and most influential Negroes in the nation reside there [in Pine Bluff]. It has men who are not only credible from a financial standpoint, but some of the finest educators, businessmen, ministers, physicians, and lawyers in the country are residents of this very progressive and typical southern city.” In 1890, Congress expanded eligibility for pensions, ranging from $6 to $12 a month, to veterans who developed disabilities after their service. Unfortunately, the application process proved to be very difficult. Applicants had to get their service confirmed by the War Department, obtain statements from those who served with them, and submit to examinations by boards of physicians, who would rate their disabilities. The Bureau of Pensions then decided whether to grant a pension. This process was even more confusing for illiterate war veterans who the pension agents helped.  In November 1891, Haralson filed a pension application for Lewis Osbrooks, an African American Grant County farmer, former slave, and Union soldier. In November 1894, a grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas indicted Haralson on 16 charges of violating pension laws, all related to Osbrooks. The grand jury accused him of forging Osbrooks’ signature on an affidavit filed on Osbrooks’ behalf, forging Osbrooks’ signature on pension receipts and checks, and withholding up to $500 from Osbrooks.  On Dec. 6, 1894, Waters asked for a delay to allow Lenard Williams, a justice of the peace, to testify. Waters wrote that the seriously ill Williams could confirm that Osbrooks signed the checks himself, but Judge A.J. Edgerton, a former U.S. senator, denied the motion. Osbrooks’ mother-in-law, Mary Sherrely, even signed an affidavit stating Osbrooks had gotten the money Haralson was accused of withholding from him. Haralson’s defense, led by attorney Charles Waters, rested on a parade of character witnesses as the court closed off other defense strategies. On Dec. 9, 1894, the jury deliberated for 15 minutes before convicting Haralson. Eleven days later, Edgerton rejected Waters’ motion for a new trial. Edgerton sentenced Haralson to two years in federal prison and a $5,000 fine (roughly $185,000 today), the maximum penalty allowed under federal law. Haralson was initially sentenced to serve his time at the Detroit House of Correction.  On March 6, 1895, Edgerton sent him to the Albany County Penitentiary in Albany, New York, after the U.S. Attorney General's Office ordered Arkansas convicts sent there. Private companies contracted with the prison to put the largely African American prisoners to work making brushes and shirts. On March 25, 1895, James McIntyre, the warden of the Albany County Penitentiary, signed a form confirming Haralson's arrival. There are no records of Haralson in any census after his incarceration. He just disappeared from history after being delivered to the penitentiary in New York State. Haralson lived his life overcoming major obstacles that would make many of us throw in the towel. He admirably did what was right and just even in the face of baseless accusations and opposition. Sources:  www.montgomeryadvertiser.com - The lost congressman: What happened to Jeremiah Haralson? https://encyclopediaofalabama.org - Jeremiah Haralson