The first time a black man was allowed to vote in the nations capital was February 25, 1867. This was 116 years after the first municipality (George Town) was formed here, and 66 years after DC was founded. This is a thread on that history.
Following the end of the Civil War, radical Republicans like Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner wanted to extend universal male suffrage to the southern states as a condition of them being readmitted to the Union.
Lincoln announced that he would push for suffrage for black men, which enraged John Wilkes Booth. Booth shot him days later. Handing the presidency to an incompetent southerner opposed to black suffrage: Andrew Johnson
Johnson prevented the Congressional Republicans from forcing the southern states to grant the vote to black men. So they turned to DC, which they had more power over.
Local white leaders in the cities of Georgetown and Washington were opposed to black suffrage. So they held a non-binding referendum on the question on December 21, 1865. They hoped a strong result would discourage Congress from pushing through the legislation.
The vote totals were pretty shameful, especially for Georgetown. In Washington city, the vote was 6,591 to 35 against black suffrage. In Georgetown it was 712 to 1. Yes, 1.
Congress ultimately ignored the referendum. The House quickly passed a bill extending the vote to black men in DC in early 1866.
The Senate took a bit longer to come around to it. Mostly this was a result of Johnson vetoing several reconstruction bills like the Freedman Bureau and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which pushed moderates into the radical camp. They passed the DC bill in December 1866.
Johnson vetoed it, but was immediately overridden. Black men were thus finally given the right to vote in the nation's capital.
The first actual election to take place after this was the local election in Georgetown for the mayor and city council. The mayoral candidates were the incumbent Henry Addison (of Hyde-Addison school fame) and Charles Welch.
Addison represented what the Evening Star described as the "White Man's Party". Welch did not actively seek the support of the pro-suffrage party, but received it nonetheless.
The election took place on February 25, 1867 and was depicted by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly in March:
With the support of the black vote and the vote of those discontented with Addison, Welch won a narrow victory: 1,019 to 933. (Note that there were almost three times the number of votes cast in that election compared to the anti-suffrage referendum)
This might sound familiar, but the newspapers reported fear that black voters might cause chaos, and no such chaos actually took place.
And this also might seem familiar, but the only chaos that did occur was when supporters of the White Man's Ticket went around Georgetown with a brass band to serenade the houses of their candidates. (The Trump boat parade of its day).
When this group got to Herring Hill–the black neighborhood in east Georgetown–it tried to start fights and threw stones. But for the presence of MPD, it could have gotten much worse.
White leaders in DC, like Alexander Shepherd, were still uneasy with black men voting, and four years later successfully pushed for the abolition of the cities of Georgetown and Washington and the creation of a territorial government for DC.
This government was led by officials appointed by the president. In the minds of white leaders in DC, it was better that no votes matter than to let black votes matter.
Shepherd's government quickly went bankrupt and DC was pushed into nearly a century of rule by commissioners. Not a single vote was cast in DC until the presidential election of 1964 (which was also the first time women voted in DC ever).
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