John Roy Lynch

Congressman John Lynch was the first Black American member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi and the youngest member of the 43rd Congress. He served from 1873 to 1877 and 1882 to 1883 (43rd-44th and 47th Congresses) and was assigned to the Mines and Mining, Education and Labor, and Militia committees. Lynch was a strong advocate for the Civil Rights Bill of 1875. Beginning in 1872, Lynch was a delegate to all but one Republican National Convention over twenty-eight years. Lynch was also the first Black American to deliver the keynote address at a Republican or Democratic national convention. Lynch is the author of The Facts of Reconstruction (1913) and Reminisces of an Active Life, which he completed in the late 1930s, but was not published until 1970.