Blanche Bruce

Blanche Kelso Bruce (March 1, 1841 – March 17, 1898) was an American politician who represented Mississippi as a Republican in the United States Senate from 1875 to 1881. Born into slavery in Prince Edward County, Virginia, he went on to become the first elected African American senator to serve a full term (Hiram R. Revels, also of Mississippi, was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate but did not complete a full term).

He was appointed as Recorder of Deeds in Washington D.C. during Benjamin Harrison's presidency. His home, the Blanche K. Bruce House, is a National Historic Landmark.

Early life and education Bruce's house at 909 M Street NW in Washington, D.C. was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975

Bruce was born into slavery in 1841 in Prince Edward County, Virginia, near Farmville to Polly Bruce, an African American woman who served as a domestic slave. His father was his master, Pettis Perkinson, a white Virginia planter. Bruce was treated comparatively well by his father, who educated him together with a legitimate half-brother. When Bruce was young, he played with his half-brother. One source claims that his father legally freed Blanche and arranged for an apprenticeship so he could learn a trade. In an 1886 newspaper interview, however, Bruce says that he gained his freedom by moving to Kansas as soon as hostilities broke out in the Civil War.

Career Bruce attended Oberlin College for two years in Oberlin, Ohio. He next worked as a steamboat porter on the Mississippi River. In 1864, he moved to Hannibal, Missouri, where he established a school for black children.

In 1868, during Reconstruction, Bruce relocated to Bolivar near Cleveland in northwestern Mississippi, where he purchased a Mississippi Delta plantation. He became a wealthy landowner of several thousand acres in the Mississippi Delta. He was appointed to the positions of Tallahatchie County registrar of voters and tax assessor before he won an election for sheriff in Bolivar County. He later was elected to other county positions, including tax collector and supervisor of education, while he also edited a local newspaper. He became sergeant-at-arms for the Mississippi State Senate in 1870.

At the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Bruce became the first African American to win any votes for national office at a major party's nominating convention, with eight votes for vice president. The presidential nominee that year was Ohio's James A. Garfield, who narrowly won election over the Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock.

In 1881, Bruce was appointed by President Garfield as Register of the Treasury. He was the first African American to have his signature featured on U.S. paper currency.

In early 1889, politically connected blacks lobbied for Bruce to receive a Cabinet appointment in the Harrison administration. Said one newspaper: "Bruce is a man of respectable ability, and has, perhaps, more than any other man of his race who has sat in Congress, the respect of those with whom he served.

Bruce served by appointment as the District of Columbia recorder of deeds from 1890 to 1893. A Philadelphia newspaper reported his appointment in 1890, but persistent claims that his salary was $30,000 a year are not substantiated by any primary records. He also served on the District of Columbia Board of Trustees of Public Schools from 1892 to 1895. He was a participant in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of Frederick Douglass and the American Negro Academy led by Alexander Crummell. He was appointed as Register of the Treasury a second time in 1897 by President William McKinley and served until his death from diabetes complications in 1898.

Personal life On June 24, 1878, Bruce married Josephine Beall Willson (1853–1923), a fair-skinned socialite of Cleveland, Ohio, amid great publicity; the couple traveled to Europe for a four-month honeymoon. Their only child, Roscoe Conkling Bruce, was born in 1879. He was named for U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, Bruce's mentor in the Senate.

One newspaper wrote that Bruce did not approve of the designation "colored men." He often said, "I am a Negro and proud of it."

In 1975, the Washington, D.C. residence of Bruce, was declared a National Historic Landmark and formally named The Blanche K. Bruce House.

In October 1999, the U.S. Senate commissioned a portrait of Bruce. African-American Washington D.C. artist Simmie Knox was selected in 2000 to paint the portrait, based on a photograph by Mathew Brady; it was unveiled in the Capitol in 2001.

Blanche Bruce is listed in Molefi Kete Asante's book 100 Greatest African Americans (2002).

On March 1, 2006, the African American Heritage Preservation Foundation unveiled a historical highway marker noting Bruce's birthplace at the intersection of highway 360 and 623 near Green Bay, Prince Edward County, Virginia.

Lawrence Otis Graham authored a historical book about Bruce titled The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty: The Senator and the Socialite in June 2006.