Name Francis Cardozo Role Politician | ||
Died July 22, 1903, Washington, D.C., United States | ||
Francis Lewis Cardozo (February 1, 1836 – July 22, 1903) was a clergyman, politician, and educator. He was the first African American to hold a statewide office in the United States. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina and died in Washington, D.C.
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Early years
Francis Cardozo was born in Charleston as the son of Lydia Weston, a free woman of color, and Isaac Cardozo, a Sephardic Jewish man who worked at the federal customhouse. They had a common-law marriage, as state law prevented their marrying. Francis had a brother Thomas. His father encouraged the boys to attend schools for free blacks, the only ones in the city that would admit them. As a young man, Cardozo worked as a carpenter and a shipbuilder.
In 1858, Cardozo matriculated at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Later, he attended seminaries in Edinburgh and London. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister.
In 1864, Cardozo became pastor of the Temple Street Congregational Church in New Haven, Connecticut. He married Catherine Rowena Howell. They had six children, four sons and two daughters, both of whom died as infants.
In 1865, Cardozo returned to Charleston as an agent of the American Missionary Association. He succeeded his brother, Thomas, as superintendent of an American Missionary Association school. He developed this school into the Avery Normal Institute, one of the first free secondary schools for African Americans. It was established to train teachers, as freedmen sought education as one of their highest priorities. In the 21st century, the Avery Institute has been incorporated as part of the College of Charleston.
His brother Thomas W. Cardozo was Mississippi state superintendent of education in the 1870s, and was a corrupt politician.
Political career
Cardozo became active in the Republican Party and was elected as a delegate to the 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention. As chair of the education committee, he advocated establishing integrated public schools in the state. He was also elected Secretary of State in South Carolina in 1868, making him the first African American to hold a statewide office in the United States. He reformed the South Carolina Land Commission, which distributed limited amounts of land to former slaves. During his term as secretary of state, he was elected professor of Latin at Howard University and intended to resign from his position as secretary of state. The governor protested his resignation, and an arrangement was made where Cardozo retained the office but appointed a deputy, so that he could teach at Howard. He remained at Howard until March 1872.
He was elected state treasurer in 1872. After he did not cooperate with corruption, some legislators unsuccessfully tried to impeach Cardozo in 1874. He was reelected in 1874 and 1876.
South Carolina elections had been increasingly marked by violence to suppress blacks from voting. The 1876 gubernatorial election season was also violent and featured widespread fraud at the polls and disputes over counts. In the end, White Democrats regained control of the state government after a compromise at the national level led to the federal government abandoning Reconstruction. This included the removal of federal troops from the South that year and other steps including supporting Democrat Wade Hampton III's claim for the governorship. Hampton demanded Cardozo's resignation and he left office on May 1, 1877.
The Democrats prosecuted Cardozo for conspiracy in November 1877. Despite questionable evidence, he was found guilty and served over six months in jail. After the federal government dropped election fraud charges against some Democrats, Cardozo was pardoned in 1879 by Governor William Dunlap Simpson.
Cardozo was appointed to a Washington, DC, position in the Treasury Department under Secretary John Sherman in 1878. He remained in that position for six years, during which time he worked on education policy for Washington. When he left the Treasury in 1884, he served 12 years as the principal of the Colored High School.
Educator
In 1884, Cardozo returned to education as a principal of the Colored Preparatory High School in Washington, DC. He introduced a business curriculum and made it a leading school for African Americans. He served as principal until 1896. In 1928, the Department of Business Practice was reorganized as a high school in northwest Washington, DC and named Cardozo Senior High School in Francis Cardozo's honor.
He was a distant relative of former United States Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. His granddaughter, Eslanda Cardozo Goode, was the wife of the singer and political activist Paul Robeson.