#OTD in 1905 James Edward O'Hara, the second African American to represent North Carolina's Second district in Congress, died at his home in New Bern. 1/

O'Hara was not from the south and had never been enslaved. His father was an Irish merchant and his mother likely of West Indian ancestry. Born in New York around 1844, by 1862 he had returned to the United States. 2/

That year he travelled with missionaries to Union-occupied North Carolina, where he became a teacher and decided to settle there. In the late 1860s, he attended Howard University where he studied law, setting up practice in Enfield in 1873. 3/

O'Hara immersed himself in local Republican politics, attending the freedmen's and constitutional conventions in the late 1860s and serving in the state house 1868-69, and as chairman of the Halifax county board of commissioners from 1873-77. 4/

While in that position, he was charged with corruption by local Democrats, to which he pleaded no contest after his house, which supposedly claimed exculpatory evidence, was burned. 5/

He ran for Congress several times before winning, losing in 1874 to the first African-American elected to serve NC in Congress, John Adams Hyman (correction, yesterday was Hyman's birthday...so embarrassed, need better notes). https://twitter.com/SlaveLegaciesNC/status/1305486939164942336 6/

Based on the popular vote, O'Hara won election in 1878, but so many votes for O'Hara were disqualified that the Democratic candidate, William Kitchin, was seated. Electoral shenanigans of this type (including...ahem...signature matching) are one of the #LegaciesOfSlavery. 7/

While waiting for his chance, O'Hara used a campaign against alcohol prohibition to build an alliance of Republicans and disaffected Democrats, a foreshadowing of the Fusionist coalition that would take power briefly in the 1890s. 8/

O'Hara finally won election in 1882, and went to Washington where, among other things, he submitted a Constitutional amendment that would have fulfilled the long-held wish of Black people for equal accommodation on public transport. 9/

But by then, Republicans had moved on from civil rights legislation in favor of business interests, where they also found Democrats. His attempt to use the Interstate commerce clause to achieve this also failed. 10/

After winning re-election, O'Hara fell victim to squabbling among Black Republicans in the Second District, in part over whethr he was "Black enough" to serve his constituents. 11/

Though nominated, so-called Independent Republican Israel Abbot ran as "a true representative of his race" and succeeded in splitting the Republican vote allowing Democrat Furnifold Simmons, who would serve one term before a 30-year stint in the U.S. Senate. 12/

In 1890, O'Hara once again tried to gain the nomination, but lost to fellow African American Henry Cheatham. O'Hara spent the last 15 years of his life in his practice, briefly running a newspaper, dying in New Bern in 1905. 13/

In his career, O'Hara saw clearly the #LegaciesOfSlavery in the loss of civil rights and unequal treatment in public accommodations and sought to change that. He was, at the least, a forerunner of the kind of politician who would take charge in North Carolina in the... 14/

...1890s and try to revive the promise of Reconstruction, an attempt that would be answered with virulent, and increasingly violent, white supremacist opposition. /15