"Oscar Stanton De Priest" [March 9,1871-May 12,1951]

Was an American lawmaker and civil rights advocate who served as a U.S.

Representative from Illinois from 1929-1935.He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from from outside the Southern States and the first in the 20th century.Oscar was born in Florence Alabama to former slaves.His mama worked part-time as a laundress,and his his daddy,name was Leander,was a teamster associated with the "Exodus"movement,which arose after the American Civil War to help African Americans escape continued oppression in the South by moving to other states that offered greater freedom.In 1878,the De priests left for Dayton,Ohio,after Leander had to save a friend who was a former Congressman from a lynch mob and another African American man killed on his doorstep.He a brother Robert De Priest.In Salina,Kansas,Oscar studied bookkeeping at the Salina Normal School.In 1889 he moved to Chicago Illinois,where he worked as an apprentice plasterer,house painter,and decorator,and eventually became a successful contractor and real estate broker.Oscar went on to build a fortune in the stock market and in real estate by helping African American families move into formerly all-white neighborhoods.From 1904-1908,he was a member of the board of commissioners of Cook County Illinois,and he then served on the Chicago City Council from 1915-1917 as alderman of the 2nd Ward,Chicago's first African American alderman.He stepped down as alderman in 1917 after being for alleged graft,but was acquitted after hiring Clarence Darrow to defend him.In 1919,Oscar ran unsuccessfully for alderman as a member of the People's Movement Club,a political organization he founded.In a few years,Oscar became the powerful of Chicago's many African American political organizations,and he became the top African American politician under Republican mayor William Hale Thompson.In 1928 when Republican congressman Martin B.Madden died,Mayor Thompson selected Oscar to replace him on the ballot and he became the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century,representing the 1st Congressional District of Illinois ( the Loop and part of the South Side of Chicago) as a Republican.During his three consecutive terms ( 1929-1935) as the only African American representative in Congressman,Oscar introduced several anti-discrimination bills.His 1933 amendment barring discrimination in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Franklin D.Roosevelt.A second anti-lynching bill failed,even though it would not have made lynching a federal crime.A third proposal,a bill to permit a transfer of jurisdiction if a defendant believed he or she could not get a fair trial because of race or religion,was passed by a later Congress.Civil Rights activists criticized Oscar for opposing federal aid to the poor,but they applauded him for speaking in the South despite death threats.They also praised Oscar for tell an Alabama senator he was not big enough to prevent him from dining in the Senate restaurant,and for defending the right of Howard University students to eat in the House Restaurant.Oscar took the House restaurant issue to a special bipartisan House committee.In a three month-long heated debate,the Republican minority argued that the restaurant's discriminatory practice violated 14th Amendment rights to equal access.The Democratic majority skirted the issue by claiming that the restaurant was not open to the public and the House restaurant remained segregated.In 1929,Oscar made national news when first lady Lou Hoover invited his wife,Jessie,to a tea for congressional wives at the White House.Oscar also appointed Benjamin O.Davis Jr.to the U.S. Military Academy at a time when the army only one African American line officer (Benjamin's daddy).By the early 1930,his popularity waned because he continued to oppose higher taxes on the rich and fought Depression-era federal relief  programs.Oscar was defeated in 1934 by Democrat Arthur W.Mitchell,who was also African American.Oscar was again elected to the Chicago City Council in 1943 as alderman of the 3rd Ward,and served until 1947.He died in Chicago and is buried in Graceland Cemetery.