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1 Introduction: “A Representative of Its Colored Citizens” Tuesday, January 3, 1877, was a historic day in the Illinois General Assembly . At exactly 12:15 p.m., fifteen minutes after its scheduled start, the Thirtieth Session of the House of Representatives convened for the first time.1 This marked the first gathering of the legislature in the new state capitol, which would not be completely finished for another nine years. The next day, after being elected Speaker of the House, Irish-born representative James Shaw (R-Mt. Carroll) noted the occasion in his acceptance speech. “It is the first time the General Assembly ever convened in this grand and noble State House—a structure so magnificent that he who walks its pillared halls and gazes upon its granite and marbled stairways, must feel himself lifted into a broader appreciation of our loved Prairie State, and the great resources garnered from its rich and virgin soil.”2 The gathering was also historic for another reason. Numbered among the 153 legislators was Republican John William Edinburgh Thomas of the Second Legislative District in Chicago—the first African American to serve in the Illinois legislature. Speaker Shaw, in his opening speech, noted the significance of Thomas’s presence in the chamber: “It is the first General Assembly in all the legislative history of the State in which a representative of its colored citizens ever took his seat among honorable colleagues and associates.”3 Both the building of the new capitol and the election of Thomas were significant events that marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. With sectionalism and the divisive issue of slavery past, the young nation was entering the Industrial Age. Illinois was a settled state and soon to become a leader in the nation’s transportation, livestock, manufacturing, coal, and agriculture industries and the home to its largest inland city.4 The new capitol in Springfield served as a symbol of the state’s growth, prosperity, and confidence in the future.5 INTrODuCTION 2 The participation of Thomas in the legislature also signified a new era. The Civil War that ended in 1865 had abolished slavery in the South. While Illinois had been a “free” state before the war, its infamous Black Laws during the antebellum period severely restricted the freedoms of African Americans. These laws, the first of which was passed just after Illinois became a state in 1818, became null and void in 1865. Yet African Americans were not given the right to vote in Illinois until 1870, with the passage of both the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the 1870 Illinois state constitution. The career of John W. E. Thomas reflects the first steps of a distinct ethnic community that no longer fought for emancipation, suffrage, and equality but rather collaborated and competed with other interest groups in the political, social, and economic spheres.6 If Thomas’s career had ended with his being the first African American in the Illinois legislature, his life would be worth examining only as a footnote in Illinois history. However, Thomas’s life and career were much more than that. For almost two decades, he was the recognized leader of the state’s African American community, and his actions showed a commitment to improving that community worth remembering. Perhaps just as important, his life exemplifies the way that many newly freed African Americans who migrated North immediately took advantage of the opportunities presented them. Born a slave in Alabama in the 1840s, Thomas moved to Chicago around 1869, at a time when African Americans accounted for less than 1.5 percent of that city’s total population. From the time of his move to Chicago until his death in 1899, he served as a political leader of the city’s often divided African American community. In an era when African Americans did not have the numbers to secure their fair share of the political pie and when ethnic considerations often determined the candidates for office, Thomas was able, through example and hard work, to ensure that African Americans were able to compete with other ethnic groups and had a voice in the legislature to defend their new rights. Thomas served three terms in the Illinois legislature and succeeded in passing the state’s first civil rights bill. While at times he was hampered as much by the schisms within the African American community as he was by racial discrimination from the white community, he...

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