Samuel A. McElwee, ca. 1857 - October 21, 1914
Samuel A. McElwee
from composite photograph of
Tennessee House of Representatives,
45th General Assembly, 1887-1888,
TSLA Collection.
Scholar, teacher, storekeeper, and newspaperman, he was elected to represent Haywood County in the 43rd Tennessee General Assembly, 1883-1884, while still a student at Fisk University.
- Re-elected to the 44th (1885-1886) and 45th (1887-1888) General Assemblies
- Earned a law degree from Central Tennessee College in 1886, during his second term
- The first African American to serve three terms in the legislature
- The first African American nominated as Speaker of the House
Samuel A. McElwee was born a slave in Madison County. After emancipation his family moved to a farm in neighboring Haywood County, where young McElwee attended Freedmen's Bureau Schools part of the year. Having been taught to read by his former master's children, he moved quickly through school, even though he had to devote much of the year to farm work. By 16 he was a teacher himself; at 18 he attended Oberlin College for a year, paying his way by washing windows, waiting tables, and picking fruit.
Supporting himself by teaching and peddling Bibles and patent medicines, he studied German, Latin, and mathematics with a Vanderbilt student whose strong recommendation earned him a Peabody scholarship to Fisk University. In 1882, while still a student, he was elected to the General Assembly from Haywood County. Although his wife died in 1885, leaving him with two small children, he served two more terms in the state legislature, earning a law degree (1886) from Central Tennessee College during his second term.
During his second legislative term, the 26-year-old McElwee was nominated by former U.S. Senator Roderick R. Butler to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, and he received 32 of the 93 votes cast. He was also the first African American Tennessean elected to a third legislative term. It was during this term that McElwee delivered a passionate oration in the House of Representatives pleading for stronger statutory sanctions against lynch mobs. His speech, which referred to three recent Tennessee lynchings, included these words: "Great God, when will this Nation treat the Negro as an American citizen? ... As a humble representative of the Negro race, and as a member of this body, I stand here to-day and wave the flag of truce between the races and demand a reformation in southern society by the passage of this bill." Despite his eloquence, the bill was tabled by a vote of 41-36.
By 1888, as he campaigned for a fourth term, Samuel McElwee had gained a national reputation. He had spoken at the Tuskegee Institute and other educational institutions; he had chaired the Tennessee Republican Convention and had represented the state at the National Republican Convention in Chicago, where he would successfully persuade presidential candidate Benjamin Harrison to give greater attention to civil rights issues.
At the same time, however, white separatists in Haywood County were conspiring to dislodge McElwee. Armed patrols terrorized African American neighborhoods and blocked the ballot boxes, and many fearful black voters stayed away from the polls. In spite of lawsuits brought later by federal election officials, those responsible, who made no secret of the fact that they had deliberately miscounted votes, were never punished. That year's General Assembly, which had no black members, quickly passed a series of laws intended to disfranchise African American voters.
McElwee and his family were forced to flee Haywood County, barely escaping with their lives. For several years they lived in Nashville, where the former legislator established both a popular newspaper and a successful law practice. The family later moved north to Chicago, and McElwee spent his final years there as the head of a prosperous law firm.