APRIL 12, 1825

BLACK-CHEROKEE PASTOR AND FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD H. CAIN BORN

Born free in Greenbrier Co., now in West Virginia, Richard’s mother was Cherokee. The family moved to Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1831 so that Cain could be educated. In 1844, he entered the Methodist ministry, but switched to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, serving as pastor in Iowa (1848), Brooklyn, New York (NY) (1861), and “Mother Emanuel Church” in Charleston, South Carolina (SC) in 1865. Cain attended both the 1864 Syracuse, NY National Black Convention & 1865 Charleston SC Colored People’s Convention, and, in 1866, founded the [SC] Leader newspaper. In 1868, he was elected to the state senate and was a U.S. Representative from (1873-77). Erosion of civil rights in the South caused him to support emigration to Liberia & violent action against the Ku Klux Klan. Leaving Congress in 1877, Cain was bishop in the AME Texas (TX)–Louisiana Conference and cofounded and was president of Paul Quinn College, Waco, TX. In 1884, he became a bishop in Washington, DC. Cain died January 18, 1887.

Sources:

“CAIN, Richard Harvey,” US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.  Retrieved 12/6/2022, CAIN, Richard Harvey | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

Photo:  U.S. Congress, between 1873-79. Public Domain. Source:
Black Americans in Congress. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives