John Lynch, up from slavery to Republican Congressman and Civil Rights Hero

Grand Old Partisan salutes John Roy Lynch, born into slavery, September 10th 1847. He and his mother were sold away from Louisiana to Mississippi. They were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Self-educated, he became a successful businessman in Natchez. The Republican governor named him a justice of the peace in 1869. Later that year, Lynch first won election to the Mississippi state house. During his final term, party colleagues elected him Speaker.

Age twenty-six, he won the first of two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Eloquent was his support for the GOP's 1875 Civil Rights Act:

"The opposition to civil rights in the South therefore is confined almost exclusively to States under democratic control, or States where the Legislature had failed or refused to pass a civil-rights bill."

"I appeal to all the members of the House – Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals – to join with us in the passage of this bill, which has for its object the protection of human rights. And when every man, woman, and child can feel and know that his, her, and their rights are fully protected by the strong arm of a generous and grateful Republic, then we can all truthfully say that this beautiful land of ours, over which the Star Spangled Banner so triumphantly waves, is in truth and in fact, the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.'"

Democrats cheated him out of re-election in 1876, but he returned for another term in 1882. Lynch was Republican National Committeeman during the 1880s and 1890s. Page 107 of Back to Basics for the Republican Party describes him chairing the GOP's 1884 national convention. A speech in his favor marked Theodore Roosevelt's entrance onto the national stage.

President Benjamin Harrison made him an auditor at the Navy Department. Lynch enlisted in the army during the Spanish-American War and served in Cuba and the Philippines, retiring as a major in 1911. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Well done, sir!

Back to Basics for the Republican Party is my civil rights history of the GOP. To quote the book: "The more we Republicans know about the history of our party, the more Democrats will worry about the future of theirs. For more information, see www.grandoldpartisan.com. 

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Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.

Each day, his YouTube videos and TikTok videos and Rumble videos and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states.

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