Representative Benjamin Turner of Alabama

On this date, the first African-American Representative from Alabama, Benjamin Sterling Turner, was born enslaved in Halifax County, North Carolina. In 1830, Turner’s widowed enslaver moved him to Selma, Alabama. He secretly learned to read as a child. After he was sold around 1845, Turner managed hotels owned by his enslavers and was able to acquire enough money to purchase property. The Union cavalry freed Turner after defeating Confederate forces at Selma in 1865, but U.S. troops burned much of the city and Turner suffered significant damage to his property, including crops and livestock. He recouped his losses through farming and working as a merchant. Soon after the war, Turner founded a school and joined the Republican Party. In 1870, he made a bid for a southwestern Alabama U.S. House seat. Running on a platform of “Universal Suffrage and Universal Amnesty,” he won a seat in the 42nd Congress (1871–1873). Having witnessed firsthand the devastation of the Civil War, Turner spent much of his congressional career seeking financial aid for Alabama. He also backed universal amnesty for former Confederates to facilitate reconciliation in his home state. “I have no coals of fiery reproach to heap upon them now,” Turner insisted. “Rather would I extend the olive branch of peace, and say to them, let the past be forgotten.” In 1872, Turner’s re-election bid was derailed when a Black third-party candidate, Philip Joseph, effectively split the African-American vote, leading to victory for Democrat Frederick Bromberg. Turner returned to his businesses but remained active in Republican politics. Falling victim to the boom and bust economy of the late nineteenth century, he was forced to sell most of his property before he died on March 21, 1894.