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Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback
Picture date: 1872-73
Image Courtesy: Library of Congress
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PICKNEY BENTON STEWART PINCHBACK PROFILE
| Born: |
May 10, 1837 in Macon,
Georgia |
| Political Affiliation: |
Republican
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| Religious Affiliation: |
African Methodist Episcopal
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| Education: |
Gilmore School (Cincinnati);
studied law at Straight
University (New Orleans) |
| Career Prior to Term: |
Union Army Officer,
Lt. Governor |
| How he became Governor: |
Became Lt. Governor upon
death of Dunn; became
Governor upon suspension of
Warmouth. |
| Career after term: |
State Board of Education,
Internal Revenue Agent,
member of Southern University
Board of Trustees |
| Died: |
December 21, 1921 in
Washington, DC |
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Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback, the son of a Mississippi white planter and a freed slave, became active in Republican Party politics in Louisiana as a delegate in the Republican state convention of 1867 and to the Constitutional Convention of 1868.
Pinchback became Lieutenant Governor under Henry Clay Warmoth when Oscar Dunn died. After Warmoth was impeached, Pinchback became Governor. He held office for only 35 days, but ten acts of the Legislature became law during that time.
After William Pitt Kellogg took office as a result of the controversial election of 1872, Pinchback continued his career, holding various offices including a seat on the State Board of Education, Internal Revenue agent and as a member of the Board of Trustees of Southern University.
Pinchback helped establish Southern University when, in the Constitutional Convention of 1879, he pushed for the creation of a college for blacks in Louisiana.
Pinchback and his family moved to Washington and then New York where he was a Federal Marshal. He later moved back to Washington to practice law and died there in 1921. Pinchback is buried in Metairie.
I am groping about through this American forest of prejudice and proscription, determined to find some form of civilization where all men will be accepted for what they are worth.
-P. B. S. Pinchback
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