"John Willis Menard" {April 3,1838-October 8,1893}

Was a federal government employee,poet,newspaper publisher born in

Illinois to parents who were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans.After moving to New Orleans,On November 3,1868,John was the first African American man ever elected to the United States House of Representatives.His opponent contested his election,and opposition to his election prevented him from being seated in Congress.


He was born in Kaskaskia in Randolph County in southern Illinois,to parents who were free people of color.They were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans,of mostly European and Some African descent.He may have been related to Michel Branamour Menard,a French Canaadian fur trader and a founder of  Galveston,Texas.John attended school in Spaarta,Illinois and Ohio Central College,then Iberia College in Iberia,Ohio.


During the Civil War,John worked as a clerk in the Department of the interior under Abraham Lincoln.He was sent to British Honduras in 1863 to investigate a proposed colony for newly freed slaves.After the war John settled in New Orleans.


He moved to New Orleans in 1865,establishing the newspaper,The Free South,later named The Radical Standard.In an 1868 special election to fill the unexpired term of James Mann,a Democrat who had died in office,John was elected as a Republican to represent Louisiana's 2nd congressional district.John was denied the seat on the basis of an election challenge by the apparent loser,Caleb S.Hunt.On February 27,1869,John became the first African American to address the chamber.
When the House committee on Elections failed to make a final determination on the election challenge the case went before the entire House of Representatives.On February 27,1869,it suspended its rules to allow both John and Caleb to address the chamber in support of their claims.Only John spoke.After Congress debated the issue,neither John or Caleb could gain enough support to be seated.The vote for Caleb was 41 in favor to 137 against.For John,it was 57 in favor and 130 against.Congressman and future president James Abram Garfield is reputed to have said that "it was too early" for an African American to admitted to Congress.Neither man was seated.
John moved to Jacksonville,Florida,where appointed to the Florida House of Representatives in 1874.He lost the next election,at a time when there was widespread intimidation of voters at elections and white Democratic efforts to suppress African American voting.That same year and again in 1877,John was elected as a Duval County Justice of the peace.
John was a poet,the author of Lays in Summer Land(1879).He was also the editor of the Florida News and the Southern Leader from 1882-1888.
John died in the District of Columbia and was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Washington,D.C. When Graceland closed in 1894,his remains,were moved to nearby Woodlawn Cemetery.His daughter,Alice Menard,married Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs,the only son of Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs.