Is Rep. J.C. Watts the first Black Republican ever elected to Congress? Is he the first Black to be part of the congressional leadership? College Station, Texas - 5/3/00

No, J.C. Watts (R-OK), elected in 1994, is neither the first Black Republican nor the first Black in leadership. Rep. Watts was selected by his Republican colleagues to be chairman of the House Republican Conference, beginning with the 106th Congress in January 1999.

The highest leadership post achieved by an African-American was House Majority Whip, held by Rep. William Gray (D-PA) from June, 1989 to September, 1991. Rep. Gray resigned from that position and the House to become President of the United Negro College Fund.

J.C. Watts' predecessors in Congress included 4 U.S. Senators. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, who was elected in 1992, served one term. The third Black Senator was Edward Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts, who served 2 terms in the U.S. Senate, from 1967-1979. Brooke's low-key entry into the Senate was in sharp contrast to the first Black elected to that body in 1870, Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi. Revels was seated only after 3 days of acrimonious debate in the Senate. He served for only one year, having been elected to fill an unexpired term. Revels returned to Mississippi and became President of Alcorn College.

Four years later, however, Mississippi elected a second Black Republican to the Senate. Blanche Kelso Bruce served one full six-year term, 1875-1881. Bruce's term was fraught with quiet slights and insults within the Senate, which he wrote about later, but most Senators rendered him public respect and praise. He created national headlines when he was chosen to preside over the Senate, becoming the first African-American to do so. He could not, however, gain sufficient political support within the Senate to get any of his bills passed, nor to get P.B.S. Pinchback seated, a Black Republican elected from Louisiana for whom he advocated. Bruce was not chosen by his state legislature for re-election; he remained in Washington holding a series of government jobs, ending with Register of the Treasury.

In the House, J.C. Watts has two Republican predecessors in the 20th century: Rep. Gary Franks from Connecticut, who served 3 terms, from 1991-1997 and Rep. Oscar De Priest from Illinois, who served 3 terms, from 1929-1935.

In the 19th century there were 20 Black Republicans elected to the House: 8 from South Carolina, 4 from North Carolina, 3 from Alabama, and 1 each from Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The first Black elected to the House was Rep. Joseph Rainey from South Carolina, who served from 1870-1879. In 1874, he attracted much national attention when Speaker James G. Blaine allowed him to preside over the House. Rainey had been born a slave, escaped to Bermuda, returned to South Carolina, and worked as a barber until he was elected to his state's legislature.