Black America’s voice
De Priest served as 1st black Congress member from North in Jim Crow era
Oscar Stanton De Priest had presence. Fair-skinned enough to pass for white, and standing at least 6 feet tall with white hair adorning his head, he was distinctly noticeable, “perhaps the most striking Negro in Chicago,” one Tribune reporter penned. But it was his presence as the only black person in national political leadership that provided hope to millions of African Americans who were finding their way in a shifting country.
De Priest, who was born in Alabama to former slaves, became Chicago’s first black alderman, and then the first black person from a Northern state to sit in Congress — and the latter he did as the sole black member for three terms.
Despite having no background or training in politics, De Priest boldly took on the responsibility of being black America’s voice during the Jim Crow era. He advocated for African Americans to have their inherent rights in a country that wanted to offer them nothing after taking everything.
De Priest and his parents, along with other Mississippi Valley black folks, moved to Kansas before the Great Migration brought an influx of black Southerners to major cities above the Mason-Dixon Line. After finishing school during his younger years in the Sunflower State, he studied business and bookkeeping. Then around age 17, he ran off to Ohio with two white boys, according to Tribune reports.
He clumsily found his way to the Windy City toward the end of the 19th century and began working as a plasterer, painter and decorator, and then later in real estate, according to the White House Historical Association.
Those close to De Priest had tales of how he got started in politics.
“Friends tell the story that shortly after his arrival in Chicago, a friend invited Mr. De Priest to attend a precinct meeting at which he was the only Negro present,” the Tribune reported. “At that time, precinct captains were elected, De Priest and his friend abstained from voting, which ended with the two candidates deadlocked. Mr. De Priest bargained with one candidate, offering to swing two votes his way if he would make Mr. De Priest secretary of the precinct. The man agreed, and a political career began.”
Despite this legend of savvy, it
took De Priest a while to make his name known in the political world; he relied on the Great Migration for help. The stream of black Southerners to the North was exponentially growing Chicago’s black population, and De Priest recognized this as an opportunity for political gain, especially since Chicago had little African American political leadership, according to the White House Historical Association.
He started the old-fashioned way: going house to house, knocking on doors and punching doorbells, specifically in the 2nd and 3rd wards on the South Side on behalf of the Republican Party.
It took a few years, but De Priest finally got his first shot in a political position.
“By 1904, De Priest’s ability to bargain for and deliver the black vote in the Second and Third Wards gained him his first elected position: a seat on (the) Cook County board of commissioners,” according to the Office of the Historian and the Clerk of the House’s Office of Art and Archives.
De Priest was warmly regarded by other black people in Chicago.
“He was vastly admired by Negroes for he participated in the political hopes, triumphs, disappointments, setbacks and advancements of his people,” reported the Tribune, noting that De Priest “identified himself with the aspirations of the Negro migrant.”
After serving as a commissioner for two terms, De Priest lost a chance at a third term but returned to real estate and became even more well-connected and financially successful, owning as much as $100,000 worth of apartment buildings.
De Priest and his wife, Jessie, lived with their two sons, Laurence and Oscar Jr., in the second flat of an eight-flat Bronzeville building complex they owned at 4536-38 King Drive, according to the White House Historical
Association. A three-yearlong restoration of the 100-year-old complex, which became a National Historic Landmark in 1975, was completed this past January. Buildings owned by De Priest, including one he was living in at the time, were the targets of bombings in the 1920s.
In 1914, De Priest earned a place in the city’s history book. Having gained the favor of Mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson, another flamboyant mover and shaker, De Priest was elected the city’s first black alderman. His time on the powerful City Council — he served two terms from 1915 to 1917 — came to an abrupt halt when he announced that he would not run again.
Some said it had to do with De Priest being “indicted in connection with the graft scandals under Chief of Police Charles C. Healey,” as the Tribune reported. “He was charged with receiving something like $3,000 from the owners of vice and gambling dens in the black belt.”
De Priest was acquitted of the charges in 1917; he insisted his run-in with the law had nothing to do with his decision to give up on retaining his aldermanic seat.
“There is a possibility that my candidacy might jeopardize the interests of the Republican party and perhaps bring about loss of representation in the city council for my race,” De Priest said, according to a Tribune report. Some suggested that Thompson had deserted him.
But the real game-changing role for De Priest came after Martin B. Madden, a Republican U.S. representative from Illinois who had just secured his 13th term, died of a heart attack. Mayor Thompson supported De Priest for Madden’s congressional seat.
In the spring of 1929, De Priest was sworn into Congress for his first term after defeating his opponents by a slim margin. He served three terms, and spent each one as the only black person in the House.
During his tenure, De Priest fiercely advocated for civil rights; spoke out against segregation, Jim Crow laws and other injustices harming the lives of black Americans; championed the 14th Amendment; and sought a national anti-lynching law, according to Tribune reporting and the White House Historical Association.
Even when he was given a less esteemed committee assignment such as Post Office and Post Roads, De Priest made the most of it. According to the Office of the Historian and the Clerk of the House’s Office of Art and Archives, “The year De Priest first won election to the House, the U.S. Post Office Department employed 45 percent of the federal government’s African–American workers.”
“De Priest seemed to have made a hit with his Negro constituents,” the Tribune wrote.
Like her husband, Jessie De Priest faced discrimination in the capital. When first lady Lou Hoover invited Mrs. De Priest to the White House for tea, as she did all the congressional wives, white Southern members of both chambers erupted into a furor, saying the invitation signified “social equality between the two races,” the Tribune reported in 1929.
During a mass meeting of NAACP membership, Oscar De Priest referred to his colleagues as “cowards” for rebuking the first lady for entertaining his wife.
“This is my country and your country,” he said. “I’ve been elected to congress the same as any other congressman, and I’m going to have the rights of every other congressman — no more and no less — if it’s in the congressional barber shop or at a White House tea.”
De Priest competed for a fourth term in Congress, but was defeated by Arthur Mitchell, an African American Democrat who supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal plan.
De Priest returned to Chicago and again served as an alderman, this time for the 3rd Ward. Later, he resumed his work in the real estate business with his son.
While walking home one day, De Priest was hit by a bus near his apartment building and was taken to the hospital. He died months later at Provident Hospital from complications brought on by the accident. He was 80 years old.
“I want to thank the Democrats of the south for one thing,” De Priest said at the NAACP meeting. “They were so barbaric they drove my parents to the north. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t be in congress today. I’ve been Jim Crowed, segregated, persecuted, and I think I know how best the Negro can put a stop to being imposed on: it is through the ballot, through organization, through fighting eternally for his rights.”