Richard Harvey Cain

Congressman Richard Cain represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1873 to 1875 and from 1877 to 1879 (43rd and 45th Congresses). Cain spoke out on behalf of the 1875 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed segregation but was later overturned. Cain also introduced a bill to use proceeds from public land sales to support southern schools serving both Black and white children. He served on the Agriculture and Private Land Claims committees. Cain supported Black emigration to Liberia and, as a leader of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, he was responsible for the establishment of churches throughout South Carolina. Cain was born in Virginia to an African-born father and a Cherokee mother. In 1831, the family moved to Ohio, where he went to school and worked on steamboats along the Ohio River. He later attended Wilberforce University.