James E. O'Hara

James Edward O'Hara (February 26, 1844 – September 15, 1905) was an American politician and attorney who in 1882, after the Reconstruction era, was the second African American to be elected to Congress from North Carolina. He was born in New York City to parents of mixed-race West Indian and Irish ancestry and was raised in the West Indies. As a young man, he traveled to the southern United States after the American Civil War with religious missionaries from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination, to help freedmen establish independent lives and new congregations. O'Hara became active in politics, being elected as a Republican to local and state offices.

O'Hara passed the bar in North Carolina in 1873 and started a law practice there. In 1878, he ran for Congress and won, but his white opponent was ruled the winner by corrupt public officials. In 1882, O'Hara was elected as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district, where there was a black majority. He served two terms. After being defeated in the 1886 election, he returned to his law practice.

Early life and education James O'Hara was born in New York City on February 26, 1844. His mother was West Indian (likely of mixed race), and his father was an Irish American merchant. Soon after James was born, his parents moved the family to the West Indies, where they lived into the 1850s before returning to New York.

Career in North Carolina After the American Civil War, O'Hara moved to North Carolina with missionaries of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination founded in New York City. It was seeking to aid freedmen and to plant new congregations of the independent church in the South.

During his early years in North Carolina, he "read the law" as a legal apprentice. O'Hara was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1873 as the third black lawyer in the state and returned to Enfield, North Carolina, to start his law practice. He also started becoming involved in politics.

Political career

After serving as a delegate and a clerk for the 1868 state convention that drafted a new state constitution, O'Hara—a Republican—served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 to 1869. O'Hara was a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1875, where he represented Halifax County.

O'Hara competed for the congressional seat from the 2nd District numerous times. When he ran for Congress in 1878, he was accused of bigamy. If true, this accusation would have rendered him ineligible to serve in Congress. O'Hara denied the charge and maintained that he had obtained a legal divorce from his first wife without her knowledge. The Republican executive committee refused to accept his account and pulled him from the congressional race, calling for a second convention less than three weeks before the election.

At the next convention, O'Hara nearly earned his nomination back, but the Democrats accused him of not being a United States citizen. O'Hara contested the results, but evidence was destroyed when his house burned down amid suspicious circumstances.

Because of Republican infighting in O'Hara's district, the vote in 1886 was split between another candidate and O'Hara. The Democrat Furnifold M. Simmons was elected by a plurality to the Fiftieth Congress. After his defeat in 1886, O'Hara ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 1888. He then resumed the practice of law in New Bern with his son Raphael. This status lasted for most blacks in the state until passage in the mid-1960s of civil rights legislation.

Personal life

O'Hara married 22-year-old Ann Maria Harris, in New Bern, on March 16, 1864. Two years later, he moved to Goldsboro, accepting a teaching position. However, Ann refused to move there with him, even after becoming pregnant. Their relationship deteriorated, and O'Hara stopped seeing Ann, who moved to Boston and changed her surname to "Cowan." It is unclear if he ever saw their child.

O'Hara was a Roman Catholic. He died in New Bern on September 15, 1905, at the age of 61. Raphael O'Hara died on October 30, 1952, also at the age of 80.