Appearances can be deceiving. Black Americans come in all skin colors. I am always bemused when some people seem surprised that some Black Americans are European in appearance. There is nothing new here to see. I have third cousins who appear white. One would not suspect they identified as Black unless they told you. Two are practicing black doctors. I dated a woman in law school who was blonde with blue eyes and white skin. She lives in Cincinnati. And she has a strong sense of Black identity. Beats me/smile. A family member lives in northern San Diego. For whatever reason, I suspect the family member is passing for white in San Diego…in the year 2024. You go girl! My family’s founding father, Daniel Brown (1833 - 1885), had no physical trait of his African ancestry. And yet Daniel founded a black family, our black American family. See also
Tonight, our pioneer black lawyer raises the timeless question—what does it mean to be a Black American? I delight when some pioneer black lawyers are non-conforming. We are forced to think outside of racial boxes, a healthy thing.
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On July 4, 1776, the delegates to the Continental Congress approved and adopted the Declaration of Independence. This date is known throughout the world as the date of American freedom from England. What is less known was the date of signing by the delegates. Most delegates signed the Declaration not on July 4 but on August 2, 1776. Some one had to be last in line to sign the Declaration.
History records the last signer of the Declaration of Independence was lawyer Thomas Heyward, Jr. of South Carolina. As fate would have it, Heyward would return to South Carolina and become a judge shortly before bring imprisoned by the British in Florida. Judge Heyward had committed treason and his neck was saved only by a prisoner swap between the British and the Americans.
Heyward lost many of his slaves as a result which accounted for his historical reputation as a martyr for the cause of American freedom. There is much irony here, of course. The Heyward family was one of the largest slaveholding families in the new country.
Judge Heyward had intimate relations with a slave woman. The product of the union was a ”fair skinned mulatto daughter.” This pattern reminds me of my own deep family past. Daniel Brown’s slave mother was the fairest in complexion of a group of sisters. Daniel’s father was Daniel Brown, the slave owner.
Judge Heyward’s daughter entered into a relationship with a wealthy white farmer. A son was born in 1849. Although the father was inclined to keep and raise his son, family members strenuously objected. They forced their son to give up the baby boy for adoption. With reluctance, the baby was turned over to former slaves who had recently been freed in 1850. The free black adoptive parents were the Millers.
The son, grandson of Judge Heyward, would be named Thomas Ezekial Miller.
Grandfather and Judge Thomas Heyward, Jr. (1746 - 1809)
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There is every indication that the Millers raised their adopted son, Thomas, with a sense of black identity. Richard and Mary Ferrebee Miller both knew slavery in the flesh. Their very name was the slave owner’s surname. And now they were entrusted with raising a baby boy who appeared white to the larger world. The greatest gift Richard and Mary could give Thomas was an education. They moved to Charleston and made sure Thomas attended schools for free blacks.
As a child, Thomas learned enterprise and self-reliance. He worked distributing the Charleston Mercury newspaper to hotels and rail stations in the city. When the Civil War happened, he continued his work but now he was duty bound to wear a Confederate uniform. In 1865, the Union Army forces captured the railroad in South Carolina. The soldiers imprisoned Thomas for the duration of the War.
He was lucky to have survived his prisoner of war experience. Many did not.
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You could be a new man once the Civil War was over. So many black people took advantage of prime opportunity and Thomas Miller was no different. First education, then public service. In that order.
When the Civil War ended, Thomas initially high tailed it out of South Carolina and his prison experience for New York. Hudson, New York to be more precise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson,_New_York Like my Grandma’s Grandfather, Daniel Brown, Thomas could have easily passed for white. No one would have been the wiser. But his sense of self was Black American. Despite all of the obvious reasons and advantages for living a lie in a place where nobody knew his name, Thomas chose to be true to himself like my ancestor.
I admire Black Americans who value inner self over outward physical appearance.
As a matter of conscience, Thomas chose to cast his lot with freedmen in the South. He left the ease of Hudson and ran back into the raging passions of his native land, South Carolina.
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In 1872, Thomas graduated from the historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. College degree in hand, the next step was a law degree. Not content to be idle, Thomas served as school commissioner from 1872 to 1874.
In 1873, Thomas entered the University of South Carolina Law School. The law school was integrated. And Thomas took advantage of the opportunity. Mindful that he needed to place the odds for bar admission in his favor, Thomas shrewdly sought out private law tutoring from State Solicitor P.L. Wiggins and Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court Franklin J. Moses, Sr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_J._Moses_Sr. One could not have asked for better heavy weight sponsors in the South Carolina Bar.
Meanwhile, Thomas was laying the groundwork for a life in public service.
He found the time to campaign for the state legislature from Beaufort and was elected in 1874. He would serve in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1874 to 1880.
In 1875 and while still enrolled in law school, Thomas passed the South Carolina bar examination and was admitted to the bar. His graduation from law school followed in 1876. He was in the last class of black law graduates from the South Carolina law school.
Notice how Thomas’ life was on the ascent in education and public service. And then the tides of history shifted for Reconstruction in South Carolina. You are probably aware that President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877 which left black voters throughout the South at the mercy of white redeemers. What you might not appreciate is how close Thomas was to this switch in time. In 1877, Thomas was “a member of the Committee on Credentials that secured a quorum for the [T.J. MacKey faction] in which the electoral votes for [Rutherford B.] Hayes as President were canvassed and declared.” Thomas enabled the election of Hayes who would disable Reconstruction months later.
The ways of American history are unpredictable.
The 1880s and the U.S. House of Representatives
The federal troops were gone and yet Thomas was still in action mode.
In 1880, the voters elected Thomas to the State Senate. He introduced two strong bills in support of civil rights. First, he filed a bill to allow blacks to teach in public schools in South Carolina. Blacks were relegated to private schools whereas white teachers could teach in private and public schools. Second, he submitted legislation specifically permitting black women to teach in public schools in Charleston. The howls of indignation were deafening. “Don’t legislate white women out of their positions for that Negro, Tom Miller!” Both bills failed. No public school teaching positions would be given to blacks for 30 years. Thomas served in the state senate through 1882.
Despite his strong position on civil rights, he continued to hold a series of offices in the public trust. The voters nominated Thomas as the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 1880. In 1882, he served as Chairman of the State Republican Party. He also served as an officer in the state militia and a customs inspector.
From 1886 to 1887, Thomas served again in the State House of Representatives. The crescendo of his public service happened when the voters elected Thomas E. Miller to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1888. He served from 1889 to 1891. His service as a black congressman in the post-Reconstruction South was an uncommon occurrence. Representing the 7th Congressional District in South Carolina, Miller took a strong and vocal position as an advocate for black interests. He introduced legislation seeking an appropriation of $1,000,000 for a home for ex-slaves. His next significant bill was for $250,000 to construct a monument to Negro soldiers killed during the Civil War.
Neither piece of legislation passed.
When Thomas ran for re-election as congressman, the race baiters came out in force. A black Republican opponent claimed his dark skin color made him more qualified to represent black voters. A white Democratic opponent charged Thomas was only 1/64 black! An absolute squeeze play! Too white for some. Too black for others.
I know the tired song and dance.
Miller went down to defeat in what I consider a sorry campaign.
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Is There Life After Congress?
Defeated in part because he was too white for some and too black for others, Thomas continued to plow ahead in public service. In 1894, the voters elected Thomas again to the State House of Representatives where he served until 1896. The voters sent Thomas as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1895, a monstrous event in South Carolina history where blacks were essentially disenfranchised. Thomas to his credit wanted to expand the right to vote. He fully supported women’s suffrage. He fought against the use of literacy as a qualification to vote but his was a voice in the wind.
Notably, Miller showed a shrewd political ability to wheel and deal with all kinds of people. U.S. Senator Benjamin R. Tillman was a notorious anti-black member of the Senate. He did not like black people. However, Miller saw an opportunity to advance black interests. Miller allied himself with Senator Tillman for which Tillman was grateful. In return, Tillman supported Miller’s quest to secure funding for a second black college in Orangeburg.
This issue became a cause celebre. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cause_c%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre Who might oppose a second black college if not a racist U.S. Senator? Why, my friends, white faculty at black Claflin University, came out united against Miller’s idea! Yes, you heard that right. The white professors…at a black college…opposed a new black college. It was Old School replacement theory. If the new second black college was successful, the new black college would produce more black teachers and these black teachers might replace white faculty at the first black college in town.
Things were that petty in 1895 in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Miller worked his political magic. With the biggest bigot in the U.S. Senate behind him, Miller got his second black college. The college was named Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College in Orangeburg. And who was the first college president of this fine institution?… Thomas E. Miller.
Politics, one has to love it at times.
If one lives by the sword, one dies by the sword. I suspect Miller played the political game with his eyes wide open. Miller came out in full opposition to a bigoted candidate for Governor in 1911. When candidate Coleman Blease became Governor Coleman Blease, the Governor forced Miller out as college president.
Nothing personal. Business you know.
It is a small world among pioneer black lawyers. People know people. Families overlap. Miller and his wife would move in 1923 to Philadelphia to be closer to their daughter, Pansy. Pansy was married to Dr. Charles W. Maxwell, a 1904 graduate of Howard University Medical School. You may recognize the name from yesterday. Miller’s son-in-law, Dr. Maxwell, was the son of pioneer black lawyer Henry J. Maxwell.
Former Congressman Thomas E. Miller passed away in Charleston, South Carolina in 1938. The inscription on his gravestone reads I served God and all the people, Not having loved the white less, but having felt the Negro needed me more.
Conclusion: We should not live in a world where race matters so much. To label one as too black or too white should be unspeakable, a moral sin. We are not there yet but I hope the day will come beyond the year 2050 when our grandchildren will consider crude race labels barbaric. For now, the best we can do is learn about the lives of real pioneer black lawyers who exercised human dignity of self-definition. The life of Thomas E. Miller reminds us that we should take people as people perceive themselves.
No one is an avatar for a racial group. Appearances can be deceiving.
Thomas E. Miller (1849 - 1938)
No words for this incredible story.