Black History Fact: Oscar Dunn 1ST Black Lieutenat Governor

Source From http://www.blackamericaweb.com

Oscar Dunn was the first elected black former slave to serve as lieutenant governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction. The self-educated Dunn learned public speaking from the actors who often stayed in his mother’s lodging house.

As a young man, Dunn fought with the 1st Louisiana Native Guards in the Civil War, the first all-black regiment to fight for the Union Army. He earned the rank of captain in a short period of time. When Dunn returned from the war, he stepped into politics in 1864. Already challenged by race, he was an English-speaking black who was considered “griffe,” or “32 parts white/96 parts non-white, and the child of a mulatto and a pure black.” In addition, he lived in New Orleans, where the French language was considered more refined in high society.

Before escalating to lieutenant governor, Dunn served as alderman and proposed resolutions that passed regarding the New Orleans public education system, legally ending unlawful segregation in the schools as early as 1867. He opened up the first employment agency for blacks in the city and the People’s Bakery, owned and operated by blacks. While serving the people, he also held the position of the Freemason’s grand master until he was elected lieutenant governor in 1868.

Dunn had a reputation of being a loud radical voice of black suffrage and civil rights. He fought against forcing former slaves back to their slave owners’ plantations as sharecroppers for “convict” labor.

In 1970, Dunn held the first statewide Republican Convention and held up Lincoln’s agenda. But in 1971, shortly before he died, he switched and became a Democrat to help impeach a corrupt Republican governor out of office. He helped to elect Pickney Pinch back in office as the first black governor of Louisiana, but he never saw the ceremony. He would die in 1971 at his home on Canal street, from congestion of the brain.