In the Classroom

Rep. Josiah Walls, Florida’s first Black Congress member

By HERB BOYD

Special to the AmNews

In last week’s column we took a deep southern dive in our discussion of Vivian Malone. This week the dive continues to plumb even deeper than Georgia to Florida. And with our profile of Rep. Josiah Walls we travel farther back into the past as well, and like Malone a significant first can be added to his resume.

Walls was born into slavery in Winchester, Virginia, on Dec. 30, 1842. It was widely presumed that his father was Dr. John Walls, his master, with whom he kept a close relationship over the years. During the Civil War, Walls was forced into conscription as a Confederate artilleryman and was eventually captured by Union soldiers in 1862. After being emancipated by his captors, he briefly attended the county normal school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Soon, he was a member of the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops and based in Philadelphia.

In 1864, his regiment moved to territory in Florida then occupied by Union forces. That June he was transferred to the 35th Regiment of the USCT where he became the first sergeant and artillery instructor. It was during this stint in Picolota, Fla. that he met and married Helen Fergueson, with whom he had one daughter. He was discharged from the military in October 1865 but chose to remain in Florida, subsequently gaining employment at a saw mill on the Suwannee River and later as a teacher with the Freedmen’s Bureau in Gainesville. A frugal, hard worker by 1868 he had saved enough money to purchase a 60-acre farm outside the city. His ambitions were bolstered by the education he had acquired, giving him an advantage to improve his status in the political realm, unlike so many other Black men of his generation.

He launched his political career as a representative of the state’s Alachua County at the Florida constitutional convention in 1868, the same year he was elected a state assemblyman. In 1869, he was elected to the state senate and was among the five freedmen in the 24-member chamber. In 1871, he attended the Southern States Convention of Colored men in Columbia, S.C. It should be noted that Walls’ ascendance is not without incidence in these waning years of Reconstruction, still he and Black elected officials fought valiantly to hold to their positions. Black voters were consistently intimidated, especially by the rise and rage of the KKK. This fear and intimidation was also felt by

white members of the Republican Party who were reluctant to support African American candidates that would possibly provoke a backlash from Democrats.

All of the threats and deceptive measures by the Democrats had practically splintered the Republican Party, and the contention in the party was intensified when scalawags (those white southerners who collaborated with northern Republicans for personal profit) and carpetbaggers (those whites who ventured South during Reconstruction to profit for it). When Walls sought to be the congressional representative from his region of the state in 1871 he was opposed by Silas Niblack, a former slave owner and a Confederate veteran of the Civil War. A key plank of Niblack’s campaign was his charge that Walls did not possess the education required to be a member of Congress. Walls challenged Niblack to a debate, and shortly thereafter an attempt was made on Walls’ life with a bullet narrowly missing him. Violence and turmoil marred the Election Day, but Walls emerged with a win, taking 627 more votes than Niblack of the nearly 25,000 cast. Walls presented his credentials in March 1871 and was sworn into Congress for a two year term and also given a seat on the Militia Committee.

Thus, Walls became the first African American to serve Florida in Congress. Despite his victory, he was unseated twice by the House Committee on Elections. Most of his time was spent fighting to hold his seat and advocating for compulsory education and economic opportunity for all races. “We demand that our lives, our liberties, and our property shall be protected by the strong arm of our government, that it gives us the same citizenship that it gives to those who it seems would … sink our every hope for peace, prosperity, and happiness into the great sea of oblivion.” Meanwhile, Niblack was busy contesting the outcome of the election, contending that several counties’ Democratic votes were rejected by canvassers who were not legally allowed to do so. Walls countered that he had lost more votes to voter intimidation by the Klan, though he lacked evidence of this. It took the House Committee on Elections two years and the Republican majority ruled that Niblack was the winner, a rare instance of the committee ruling in favor of the minority party. Walls’ opponent had won a battle but the war between them was hardly over. When a four-way race took place in 1873, Walls came out on top defeating Niblack who came in third as a Conservative. Upon his return to Congress, Walls was assigned to the Committee on Expenditures in the Navy Department.

Somewhat free of the tumult of reelection, Walls now had time to devote to a number of pressing issues in Florida, which he dubbed “my own sunny state.” He was an avid promoter of tourism to the state, infrastructure improvements in telegraph lines, post offices and land-grant colleges. His congressional clout was felt from the farms to the cities, though he was unsuccessful in protecting the state’s orchards from foreign competition. Most of the measures never gained traction, never made it out of committee. He did, however, manage to gain pensions for Seminole War veterans who fought several battles against the state’s indigenous population.

Among Walls’ most passionate demands were those waged for equality in education, particularly one entered in the Civil Rights Bill 1875, a measure that was struck from the bill just before the vote. Walls was exercised that he abstained from voting. “I reluctantly confess, after so many years of concessions, that unless partisan and sectional feeling shall lose more of its rancor in the future than has been experienced in the past...fundamental law will be disregarded, overthrown, and trampled underfoot, and a complete reign of terror and anarchy will rule supreme,” he said in his address to the House floor.

In 1874, Florida was split into two congressional districts, and Walls was the candidate in the eastern half of the peninsula, and this fractured the Republican Party and more trouble arrived with the economic depression. Even so, Walls had maximized his entrepreneurial ventures, amassed considerable wealth, all of which gave him an advantage in the subsequent election. Once again he faced a formidable opponent and a member of the Whig Party. Voters, as expected, cast their ballots along party lines. And Walls won by a slim margin. He was now a member of the 44th Congress and assigned to the Committee on Mileage. He wasn’t securely in his seat before his opponent, as before, began a campaign to unseat, again citing certain illegalities.

Unlike the previous attempt to unseat him, Walls wasn’t as lucky this time and in 1878 his bid for re-nomination failed. But his political journey continued when he won a seat in the state senate, where he resumed his demand for compulsory public education. There were several other unsuccessful attempts to get back in Congress but ultimately he decided to settle into taking charge of the farm at Florida Normal College (now Florida A&M University) until his death on May 15, 1905. Oddly, his obituary wasn’t published in any of the mainstream Florida papers.

Rep. Josiah Walls courtesy of Flickr

ACTIVITIES

FIND OUT MORE

Much of the above article is listed in the files at the Library of Congress, though several other publications on African American history have profiles.

DISCUSSION

Given the debates and splits that occurred during Reconstruction, Florida’s history provides an expansive example.

PLACE IN CONTEXT

Born in bondage, Walls lived through Reconstruction and the dawn of the 20th century.

THIS WEEK IN BLACK HISTORY

Feb. 6, 1820: The first organized emigration of Blacks in America to be returned to Africa.

Feb. 7, 1883: Famed pianist and composer Eubie Blake was born in Baltimore. He died in 1983.

Feb. 7, 1965: Comedian/ actor Chris Rock was born in Andrews, S.C.

with undiagnosed dyslexia as a young person, I know how important it is that students are given the tools necessary to overcome roadblocks to learning,” Adams continued. “I plan to make dyslexia screening universal in all our public schools.”

Students face more surveillance on the largely Black and Hispanic side of the boundary

There’s been plenty of talk in education circles about the school-toprison pipeline, and it seems it’s functioning as designed.

Word in Black found that there are 17% more security guards in schools on the Black/Hispanic side of the school zoning boundary. And, on that majority Black/Hispanic side of the boundary, on average, majority-Black schools have about twice the number of security guards than the majority-white schools.

And in their series Criminalizing Kids, the Center for Public Integrity found that in 46 states, Black students were referred to law enforcement at higher rates than the national total rate of referrals.

Royal says teachers are taught to manage their classrooms and schools in general in “ways that are dehumanizing—that are controlling out of this idea of tough love.”

“I always ask when do Black children get to experience love that is gentle?” Royal says. “Love that is tender? Love that is redemptive or compassionate? I think our schools still see not even just Black children—Black families, Black people—as people who need to be controlled and need to be taught how to be instead of just working with us as human beings.”

Mental health should not be a privilege—in schools or otherwise

Compassion should be coming from school counselors, but they’re a resource that is more common on the boundary with the lower share of Black and Hispanic residents. Though the data does not show significant differences in the presence of school counselors, Toldson says that is misleading and there’s still an “unevenness.”

“Students from more affluent backgrounds, a lot of times their parents will pay for counselors outside of the school,” Toldson says. “On the other hand, if you have mostly students whose parents can’t afford counselors, private therapy, or private mental healthcare, then you actually need a higher counselor-to-student ratio at those schools. That’s a case where, when they appear even, that may actually still be a disparity.”

The pandemic has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health. Especially Black people, and especially Black children. Unfortunately, Royal says, the conversation surrounding students’ mental health has been “very narrow.”

“Not only are the children extra stressed, but the adults who are supposed to be helping them cope with the stress, they’re also extra stressed,” Royal says. “School districts, especially underresourced school districts, are struggling. They’re being reactive and trying to figure out all these competing interests.”

Between the immense pressures of trying to keep kids both in school and COVID-free, Royal says mental health gets pushed down on the priority list and is lacking the rich conversation it deserves.

“Unfortunately, people are thinking the only thing you need to do for mental health is have them socializing, which is hard in the midst of COVID,” she says. “Our kids are dealing with a lot around: Is this gonna kill me? Is this gonna kill my family? Does my school have the capacity to keep me safe?”

Where are we on desegregating schools?

The Urban Institute’s Dividing Lines report features an interactive map to show where school boundaries are drawn and exactly how schools remain segregated. Seemingly arbitrary imaginary lines group Black and Hispanic students together, keeping white students on the other side.

Royal covers this topic in her forthcoming book, “Not Paved for Us: Black Educators and Public School Reform in Philadelphia.” While she is not opposed to school desegregation, Royal doesn’t think it’s the only solution to ensuring Black children receive an excellent education.

“Why aren’t Black children in their own schools worthy of these resources?” Royal asks. School desegregation, Royal explains, was a way of selling schools and neighborhoods that were considered “undesirable to white people.”

“School desegregation became something where our needs weren’t necessarily centered,” Royal says. “It was like, ‘We need to sell it to white people. We have to somehow make the Black students palatable for them, but also present Black students as a learning opportunity,’ which then is not fair to Black students.”

Dr. Royal’s insight makes sense to Toldson, a parent, who says he doesn’t believe “simply being around white students is good enough for them to get the kind of education that they need.” However, he says having a segregated environment is a “dangerous proposition,” especially with income disparities.

“In this country,” Toldson says, “it always leads to disparate outcomes.”

Mayor Adams knows some dominoes will fall based on another one’s fall. He likes the city and Albany collaborating to help young New Yorkers.

“The futures of New York City and New York State are intertwined, and we must work together to ensure progress and prosperity,” testified Adams. “But our mutual recovery will be difficult if revenue streams are cut off from the city and drastic cuts from previous years are not restored.”

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Charles Barron in the past, and has their undying support in his campaign. He has been an active community organizer, gardener, and leader in his native district for years. He ran for state senate in Senatorial District 19 in 2020, but lost to incumbent Sen. Roxanne Persaud in the June primary. So far in the special election he has raised about $23,073, said the state’s disclosure reports.

Lucas is a long-time community activist and former district leader residing in Starrett City. She ran against Barron for the 42nd City Council seat in 2021 and lost. Lucas said she pivoted to the Assembly race because there was still work to be done in the community. Lucas has garnered strong endorsements from Democratic leaders, such as the Kings County Democratic Party, and labor unions. She has raised about $31,925 in campaign contributions, said the state’s disclosure reports.

District leader Marvin J. King, who’s running on the Republican and Conservative line, could not be reached directly for comment. But, Kings County Republican Party Chairman Ted Ghorra confirmed his candidacy. Ghorra said given the short time frame for the special election, it’s not surprising that many people aren’t aware of the candidates or getting out the vote.

The short turnaround time for the special election, since it was announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Jan. 6, feels even more sped up considering right after the special election is over the winner will have to begin campaigning again for the primary in June and then the general election in November. Basically, they’ll be running for office for the next nine months in total to keep their seat, if elected.

According to Board of Elections results as of Tuesday night, a total of 116 people have voted early in the special election so far. Election Day for the 60th special election is next Tuesday, Feb. 15.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://tinyurl.com/fcszwj8w

Keron

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campaign to vy for the votes of the community members,” said Alleyne. “We’re backed by the people.”

Raised in a household with a crossgeneration of family members, Alleyne said he was taught the importance of service from both his parents and grandparents. His grandfather became a steward of community gardens on the block. A tradition Alleyne has continued and led to his initiatives to provide more fresh food access across the district.

“Growing up in the East, I grew up with a lot of family,” said Alleyne. “My family came to this country from Trinidad. We basically all lived in the same house.”

Part of his upbringing in the community, said Alleyne, was riddled with ‘stop and frisk’ police harassment. He said whether it was walking through the playground or coming back from a fast food place, there was always an interaction with police. Because of his experiences, he wants to prioritize state funding for local cure violence organizations and address the numerous economic conditions that lead to crime and violence.

“I do not believe that the first thing when it comes to my safety is police,” said Alleyne. “But we [can] collectively work on community solutions, community control, and also look at cure violence programs on the state level.”

As a father of a five-year-old in the “COVID-era,” Alleyne said he would also find funding for universal child care. He said it would be a great benefit for working parents. On education in general, Alleyne wants to allocate space to fully fund schools and bridge the technology gap for students. He suggested free portable hotspots for students that don’t have access to wifi or stable housing that has internet.

Alleyne said the other pressing issues facing the district include affordable housing, adequate health care for all, transportation equity, policing reform, and climate change.

Early voting for the special election began this past Saturday, but voting caps on Election Day next Tuesday, Feb. 15. From there, the elected assembly member goes on to fight to keep the seat in the June primary and then again in November’s general election.

“I’m a marathon,” said Alleyne about the possibility of winning only to continue campaigning. “I always think in turns of the long run. I’m absolutely ready to flip the switch and go right into the petition period and having conversations with community members who didn’t vote for me, to understand why. And make sure whether or not they voted for me, I represent them. ”

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https:// tinyurl.com/fcszwj8w

Candidate Keron Alleyne for AD 60

Lucas

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Lucas has a strong backing from the Kings County Democratic Party, including Party Boss and Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Roxanne Persaud, and labor unions.

She has served as an advocate in the community for over 20 years. “I have a record of service,” said Lucas about serving different neighborhoods and public housing developments in the district on the ground. “I live in Starrett City, but I am East New York.”

She is a former female district leader for Assembly District 60. She serves on committees for Community Board 5, is the co-founder and member of the East New York Brooklyn Collaborative, a member of the PTA, and founder and president of The People First Democratic Club and The People First Education Fund.

Lucas was initially from New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA’s) Mitchel Houses in the South Bronx. She said her father moved her, her mother, and her sisters to Brooklyn’s Starrett City in the late 1970s looking for a safer environment for his family. “It’s one of the largest federally subsidized communities in the country,” said Lucas about Starrett City, “and one of the most diverse communities as well.”

Her parents were heavily involved in their community and participated in local campaigns. Lucas’ mother still resides in Starrett City, while Lucas currently lives across the street and takes care of her father’s pressing healthcare needs, she said.

Lucas said that affordable housing and solving the homelessness crisis is a priority for her, as well as quality health care, equitable resources for education, and public safety. She also has a robust 21st Century Rescue Plan for East Brooklyn that lists her plans for each neighborhood inside and outside of the district.

“It never stops. We’ve knocked on thousands of doors, we have a phone banking operation, we’ve made sure to engage churches, at train stations, anywhere we can find the voters,” said Lucas about the race currently. She said she has always made voter education central to her platform, to pull local voices together and make sure they are voting.

“There’s so many people that support change but many that we don’t have access to and still so many that weren’t aware that there was a special election happening. I have more work to do,” she said about the low early voting turnout.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://tinyurl.com/ fcszwj8w