Volume 17 , Issue 43

1910 - Muskogee County Negro Runs For Legislature

This was an interesting news article from Muskogee County, Oklahoma, printed in The Daily Ardmoreite, dated 16 May 1910, Monday, page 1: "Negro Will Run For Legislature," as the Muskogee "Lily White" republicans had it put square up to them.

Did you know back in 1910, in Muskogee county, Oklahoma, there were two elements in the republican party there, one known as the "Lily whites" and the other as the "Black and Tans?

Found on Newspapers.com

Muskogee, Okla., May 15 (1910) -- The biggest sensation in politics in Muskogee county since entering statehood was the announcement made the afternoon of May, 1910, when Archie V. Jones, a negro, would be a candidate for the legislature from Muskogee county.

Jones had been in politics there for several years. He was made a member of the republican state committee from this county two years ago (1908) by the republican machine, which went to that extreme to hold the heavy negro vote in line for a white republican ticket. Jones having gotten a taste of the fruits of politics aspired to something better and believed that with the heavy negro vote he could get the republican nomination and this county (Muskogee county) is normally republican.

There were tow elements in the republican party there, one known as the Lily Whites and the other as the Black and tAns. The former believed in keeping the negro out of politics as far as possible, and at the same time getting his vote. The other element had been willing to give the negro more prominence, in proportion to the m=number of black votes that could be polled. The Lily Whites had usually been able to control by giving the negro leaders committee assignments and positions of that character, but always keeping them off the ticket for an office.

It appears that Jones had thrown down the gauntlet and was demanding that the negroes be given something besides honorary appointments. At present (1910) the three representatives in the legislature from Muskogee county were all republicans. It was reported that if Jones can control the negro vote he could be nominated.

Henry Lincoln "Linc" Johnson (1870-1925)

Who was Henry Lincoln "Linc" Johnson? We find in our research that he was an American attorney and politician from the state of Georgia. He was born 27 July 1870 in Augusta, Georgia to former salves Martha ann and Peter Johnson. and died 10 September 1925, at the Freedmen's Hospital after having a stroke at his home in Washington, DC.

"Linc" attended Atlanta University, graduating in 1888. He then attended the University of Michigan, where he obtained a law degree in 1892. He passed the Georgia bar exam and opened a law practice in Atlanta, eventually becoming the attorney for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.

Johnson married fellow Clark Atlanta University graduate Georgia Douglas in 1903. The achieved literary fame as a poet associated with the "Harlem Renaissance." They had two sons, Peter Douglas Johnson and Henry Lincoln Johnson, Jr., the latter of whom became an important attorney in his own right.

Line was best remembered as one of the most prominent African-American Republicans of the first two decades of the 20th century, and a leader of the dominant "Black and tan faction" of the Republican party of Georgia.

"Linc" was appointed by President William Howard Taft as Recorder of the Deeds for the District of Columbia, at the time regarded as the premier political patronage position reserved for black Americans.

It was during the 1916 Presidential election that the Republican Party of Georgia split into two rival factions — a group of African-American-dominated regulars headed by Johnson, commonly known as the "black and tans", and an insurgency of European-Americans commonly known as the "lily whites." Johnson managed to retain control of the party apparatus in the Presidential election year of 1916 and again in 1920, controlling the Georgia delegation to the Republican National Convention in those years and thus retaining control over patronage appointments.

After his 1921 confirmation defeat in the Senate, Johnson returned to legal practice in Washington, DC; his place in national politics was thereafter limited. One of Johnson's most famous cases came in 1922, when he was called to defend a young black man charged with sexual assault of a white girl below the age of consent.[16] These extremely serious charges carried a potential penalty of 30 years in prison or execution, not to mention the possibility of extrajudicial lynching.

Following expert cross-examination in the case, Johnson delivered what was called by one observer one of the "most eloquent and forceful" closing arguments ever heard in a District of Columbia court.[16] The jury failed to agree in the case after six hours of deliberation, with seven jurors voting for acquittal; the foreman later commented that the defendant owed his life to Johnson's summation.

Despite his removal from Georgia politics, Johnson was not entirely forgotten in the corridors of power. In September 1923 Johnson was one of a handful of black political leaders invited to Washington, DC for private consultations with President Calvin Coolidge on issues of concern to the African-American community.
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