Eli Barnes
Eli Barnes was a representative in the Georgia Assembly as a Republican during the Reconstruction Era. A former slave who worked as a mechanic, he was African American.[1] He was elected in 1868 and represented Hancock County, Georgia in the 80th Georgia General Assembly.[2] He was appointed to the Committee on Manufactures. He only served one term.
He asked for military units to protect a black school in 1869. As a result, he received threats and intimidation from members of the Ku Klux Klan.[3][4]
Barnes was one of those who testified to a select committee of congress about widespread intimidation and horrific attacks in African Americans in the Southern States.[5][6] He told the congressional investigating committee, "It has got to be quite a common thing. . . to hear a man say, 'They rode around my house last night, and they played the mischief there; my wife was molested, my daughter badly treated, and they played the wild generally with my family.'"[6]
References
- Edmund L. Drago (1982). Black Politicians and Reconstruction in Georgia: A Splendid Failure. University of Georgia Press. pp. 38–. ISBN 978-0-8203-1438-9.
- Sanford, Paul Laurence (August 1, 1947). "The negro in the political reconstruction of Georgia, 1866-1872". ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 2110. Cite journal requires
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(help) - Grant, Donald Lee (1993). The Way it was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia. University of Georgia Press. p. 119. ISBN 9780820323299.
- Representatives, USA House of (1872). House Documents. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 954–955.
- Mark Roman Schultz (October 1, 2010). The Rural Face of White Supremacy: BEYOND JIM CROW. University of Illinois Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-252-09236-7.
- Rosén, Hannah; Ash, Jennifer (2009). Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3202-8.