"Raphael-Elize" [1911-February 9,1945]

Was an early 20th century French politician and the first black mayor of a metropolitan town in France: Sable-surSarthe (Sarthe).He was born in Martinigue into a racially mixed family: Augustin,his daddy,his a tax collector and active Freemason,and his mama,Jeanne,had eight children.


In 1902,the family who lived in Saint-Pierre moved to Fort-de-France just before Mount Pelee expolosion.As Saint-Pierre refugees they resettled in France.Raphael was 11 when he entered the French school system.He attended the best high schools in Paris (Lycee Montaigne and Saint-Louis) where he completed his studies and then enrolled in veterinary schools in Lyons,graduating in the summer of 1914 just before the beginning of World War I.


Twenty-three-year-old Elize joined a colonial infantry regiment,first as private and then he was later assigned as the regiment's veterinarian.During the war he receive the Croix de Guerre.


In 1919 he married Caroline Hayotte who was from the same mixed-race community in Martinigue.Shortly afterwads the couple moved to Sable-sur-Sarthe,a cattle and horse producing region that at the time had no veterinarian.They eventually had one one daughter,Jeanne,who died in 1938.At the time they were the only blacks in town.Elize,joined,the farmer's association,was a board member of the saving bank,and presided over the local veterans association.He also developed a reputation as a classic music lover and a local photographer with his own dark room.


Elize joined the socialist party (SFIO) in 1924.Five years later in 1929 he was elected may of  Sable making him the first black office holder in France in modern times.It was particulary important achievement because Sable was in a conservative and Catholic region.


As mayor Raphael worked hard to modernize Sable.He led the town in creating its first kindergarten,a community center,a public soccer field,and the first public swimming pool west of paris.


In 1935 Raphael returned to Martinique as the representative of the French Association of Mayors. He was there for the 300th anniversary celebration of Martinique's link to France.While in Martinique he traveled back back to his birth city,Saint Pierre,where he was welcomed by the mayor,Maxence Elize,who was one of his brothers.


When French entered World War II in 1939,Raphael was mobilized into army as a veterinarian with the rank of captain.After the fall of France to Nazi Germany on June 22,1940 Raphael returned to Sable but was removed from the office of mayor by the German Army which now occupied the town.In 1943 he entered the Resistance network to gather information about the Nazis and French collaborators.


Raphael was arrested by the Nazis in November 1943 and sent to prison first in France and then to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in east-central German in January 1944.One year later,on February 9,1945,he was killed by an allied bomb during a bombing raid.


The public square facing the town hall in sable was named after Raphael in 1946.A second public square in Le Mans was named after him in 2011.In 2013 the French government issued a stamp to honor his memory.