The 56-Year Silence
Black Political Power in Georgia, 1868 – Present
Elected by the people. Seated by the Constitution. Expelled by their colleagues. Erased for 91 years.
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In July 1868, thirty-three Black men took their seats in the Georgia legislature — the first Black lawmakers in the state’s history. By September, their white colleagues voted to expel all thirty-three Black members of the House, arguing that the right to vote did not include the right to hold office. It was the only racial purge of seated legislators in American history.
Federal troops reinstated them in 1870. By 1872, Redemption had removed them all again — this time permanently. No Black Georgian would serve in the state legislature for 91 years.
On September 3, 1868, the Georgia House voted 83 to 23 to expel every Black member. The Senate followed days later. The white majority ruled that the new state constitution granted Black men the right to vote but not the right to hold office. The expelled members had committed no crime. Their offense was being Black and elected.
Henry McNeal Turner stood on the House floor and delivered his response: “I shall neither fawn nor cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg for my rights. I am here to demand my rights and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who dare to cross the threshold of my manhood.”
Federal troops reinstated the expelled members in 1870. Jefferson F. Long was elected to the U.S. Congress that same year — the only Black Georgian to serve in Congress until Andrew Young in 1973. But by 1872, Redemption had swept them all from office permanently.
Thirty-three men, duly elected by the people of Georgia, erased from their own legislature. And then silence. For ninety-one years, not one Black voice in the Georgia statehouse.
September 1868
Silence
Expel
They were expelled for being Black and elected. That vote has never been formally rescinded.
Help us map the places these men built, preached, and served before and after they were driven from office. Their churches, schools, and communities survived the silence.
The history preserved here is not a museum exhibit. It is a living record with direct implications for how we understand civic participation, community power, and the work that remains.
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Join the Map
Every church, school, lodge hall, and cemetery that Black communities built during the silence is a monument to persistence without representation.
Explore the Map- U.S. House of Representatives — History, Art & Archives (history.house.gov)
- Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (Harper Perennial, 2014)
- BlackPast.org