Pinchback: America’s First Black Governor

Born to a formerly enslaved mother and a white planter father, P. B. S. Pinchback (1837–1921) became the first African American governor in the United States. His tenure as governor of Louisiana was brief—a mere thirty-five days—but he remains one of the most prominent African American officeholders during the Reconstruction era. Yet despite being a pivotal figure in the post-Civil War South, attempts to tell his story have been incomplete. From the deep influence of a mother who had spent half of her life in bondage, to the ambiguity of racial identity in Pinchback’s life and world, to a political career that was as tumultuous and rich as any in American history, the life and career of Pinchback are far more interesting and complex than most historians have portrayed. This volume presents Pinchback’s story more fully and accurately, exploring the larger and more nuanced account of how Pinchback used strategy and skill to overcome obstacles, maintain power, and push an agenda of rights and equality during the Reconstruction era, often in the face of great adversity. Pinchback worked feverishly to help create and nurture a democratized environment that made African Americans and Creoles the political and even social equals of white Louisianans. This was a sweeping change that only a few years earlier most people could have hardly dreamed possible. In every sense of the word, it was a revolution that reconfigured the political and social landscape and transformed life as everyone had once known it. Read more