Jeremiah Haralson, a powerful orator and adroit debater,
rose quickly in Alabama state politics before serving one
term in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 44th
Congress (1875–1877). In the contentious politics of
Reconstruction Alabama, Haralson battled the resurgent
Democratic Party to preserve Black civil and political
rights before violence and election fraud undermined his
re-election campaigns in 1876 and 1878. He was both
principled and pragmatic, willing to challenge those in
his own party who prioritized their personal and political
interests over building a lasting and just peace in the
South. “Is it not better that the leading colored men take
this thing in hand and build up our race, build up our
party, upon the true principles of right and justice of
Republicanism,” Haralson wrote in 1876, “and drive those
who are striving to ride into office on prejudice into the
blackest political hell?”1
Jeremiah Haralson was born enslaved near Columbus,
Georgia, on April 1, 1846. His early life is not well
documented. He was sold twice as a child before John
Haralson, a lawyer from Selma, Alabama, purchased him in
1859. One observer, noting the brutal physical toll Jeremiah
Haralson’s early experiences had on his body, recorded,
“Every square inch on his back shows the scars of the whip
of his slavery days.”2
After he was emancipated at the end of the Civil War
in 1865, Haralson taught himself to read and write. He
made his living as a farmer and married Ellen Norwood in
1870. They had one son: Henry. In the contemporary press
Haralson was often referred to as “Jere,” which was also how
his name appeared in the Congressional Directory for the
44th Congress.3
Haralson’s skills as a politician were often commended by
colleagues and the press during his career. He was described
as “a born wit,” who punctuated his speeches with sarcasm
and humor. “He is a ready and shrewd debater,” a colleague
noted in 1872, with a “ringing voice.” During his time
presiding over the Alabama state senate, observers praised
him as “well versed in parliamentary usages.” After hearing
Haralson speak at the National Convention of Colored
Men in New Orleans, Louisiana, in April 1872, Frederick
Douglass called him “one of the most amusing, ready,
witted and gifted debaters” at the gathering. “While he has
humor enough in him to supply a half dozen circus clowns;
he is a man of real solid sense.” Douglass went on to note
that Haralson may be “in danger of letting his immeasurable love of drollery get the better of the more serious side of his nature, and preferring to make men laugh to making
them think, for it is in his power to do the latter as well as
the former.”4
While most Black Alabamians supported the Republican
Party—which championed the civil and political rights of
formerly enslaved people after the Civil War—Haralson
made the unconventional decision to enter political life as
a Democrat. In 1868, he made several speeches in support
of Democratic presidential candidate Horatio Seymour and
his running mate, Francis P. Blair. Haralson also served as
secretary of the local “Seymour and Blair Club,” an all-Black organization which supported the Democratic ticket
in 1868 and which, it was said, denounced “the efforts of
the carpet baggers to ruin both races.” In August 1868,
Haralson narrowly escaped a violent attack by a group of
Black Republicans described as “Radicals” by a local paper.5
It is difficult to reconcile Haralson’s early Democratic
activism with the balance of his career. In both state and
national office, Haralson demonstrated a stark aversion
to the Democratic Party’s agenda while upholding the
principles of the Republican Party. While some sources
attributed his Democratic affiliation to a sincere political
decision on Haralson’s part, a contemporary source close to
Haralson relayed a story the Alabama Representative often
told about his speeches for the Democratic ticket. Haralson
later claimed that he was more interested in backing the
Republican candidates, Ulysses S. Grant for President
and Schuyler Colfax for Vice President. “While he made
Seymour and Blair speeches for money, he talked Grant and
Colfax for nothing.”6
By 1870, Haralson had become more direct in his
association with Republican politics. In 1869, he served as
an election inspector in a Dallas County, Alabama, voting
precinct for the congressional election held in August.
A year later, he successfully ran as an Independent for
the state house of representatives. In September 1870,
Haralson presided over the Republican Party’s district
convention, at which Benjamin Sterling Turner—the first
African American from Alabama to serve in Congress—was
nominated for the House. By 1872, when he was elected
to the Alabama state senate, Haralson was a staunch and
vocal Republican. He successfully navigated a civil rights bill
through the state senate, though its progress stalled in the
house. Only a few years into his legislative career, Haralson’s
skills in debate made him, as one observer wrote, “feared,
perhaps, more than any colored man in the legislature of
Alabama.” He was also president of the Alabama Laborers’
Union for most of the 1870s.7
By the time he addressed the 1872 National Convention
of Colored Men, Haralson had fully embraced the
Republican Party as a vehicle for national change. During
the presidential election later that year, a Liberal Republican
faction had mobilized to challenge the Republican Party’s
standard bearer, the incumbent President Grant. Haralson
was adamant that Black Americans recognize the urgency of
the moment and back Grant. When one attendee suggested
they wait to see if Liberal Republicans nominated Senator
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts for President, Haralson
warned, “We have waited too much, and if we do not look
out we will keep on a waiting.”8
Even though Haralson stressed the importance of
Republican solidarity, he remained skeptical of many White
Republicans in Alabama who he believed had entered
politics strictly for personal gain. For Haralson, they were
“office hunters” more interested in dividing Alabamians
to maintain their control over the Republican Party than
they were in building a durable and prosperous peace in
the South. This perspective shaped his relationship with the
party for years to come.9
In 1874, Haralson won the Republican nomination in
Alabama’s First Congressional District, which stretched
over a swath of western Alabama, including Haralson’s
hometown of Selma and a large chunk of the central
Alabama Black Belt. Representative Turner had held the
same seat in the 42nd Congress (1871–1873). The district’s
population was about 50 percent African American.
Haralson campaigned on a strong civil rights platform,
appealing to the district’s freed people. Both White
Republicans and Democrats rallied behind the incumbent,
Liberal Republican Frederick George Bromberg, who had
defeated Turner and another Black candidate two years
earlier. But Haralson ultimately captured 54 percent of the
vote to win his seat in Congress.10
When the House convened for the 44th Congress in
December 1875, Haralson was sworn in and assigned to the
Committee on Public Expenditures. Bromberg contested
Haralson’s victory, however. The Committee on Elections
did not report on the case until April 18, 1876, when it
decided unanimously to reject Bromberg’s challenge. The
Democratically-controlled committee declared some of
Haralson’s votes invalid, but he retained a winning margin. In announcing the decision on the House Floor, Democrat John Thomas Harris of Virginia, the committee chair,
accused Republicans in Haralson’s district of manipulating
and intimidating Black voters and claimed the committee’s
investigation had uncovered “frauds as flagrant and abuses
as violent as ever have been committed in this country
upon the elective franchise.” Republican Martin Ingham
Townsend of New York defended the panel’s unanimous
decision and Haralson’s right to be seated, stating that after
43 years as a lawyer, “I have never seen such infamous, such
glaring, such self-confuted perjury as was attempted in
opposition to the sitting member.” The House ultimately
approved the resolution reported by the committee,
confirming Haralson’s hold on the seat.11
During his single term in office, Haralson never
addressed the House in an extended speech on the floor.
His only brief remarks came at the end of a debate on a bill
amending an 1871 measure providing pensions to surviving
veterans of the War of 1812 and their wives and children.
Haralson asked that lawmakers extend these benefits to “the
surviving colored soldiers” of the conflict as well. Haralson’s
other legislative proposals focused largely on the needs
of his state and those of African Americans throughout
the nation. He drafted two bills to use the proceeds from
the sale of public land to fund educational initiatives as
well as a bill to revise the list of counties included in three
Alabama judicial districts. He also presented a petition
from citizens in Mobile, Alabama, requesting compensation
for the use of a medical college and supplies by officers
of the Freedmen’s Bureau. None of Haralson’s proposals
passed the House.12
In January 1876, Haralson voted for a bill to lift the
remaining political restrictions on all former Confederates.
Although the bill did not pass, Haralson recognized that
his support had been controversial among Republicans. In
a letter to a friend later that month, he tried to justify his
vote by pointing out that President Grant favored amnesty
and that the 1874 Republican platform guaranteed equal
protection of the law. He also mentioned the need for
change born out of cooperation between the White and
Black residents of Alabama. Haralson stressed that the
“office-hunters” of the Republican Party had made the
amnesty bill a divisive issue by not thinking about what he
called the long-term interests of the region. “We must drive
out these hell hounds and go in for peace between the two
races in the South,” he declared.13
Haralson anticipated a violent 1876 election across
the southern states. But he was wary of using federal
soldiers to police polls and ensure orderly voting. “Every
‘blue-jacket’ sent to the South makes democratic votes,”
Haralson warned. He did, however, welcome federal
election supervisors at the polls, particularly during his
difficult re-election campaign.14
By 1876, the Alabama state legislature had gerrymandered
Haralson’s district, cutting it nearly in half so that it
encompassed only the west-central Alabama Black Belt.
The new Fourth District had by far the largest Black
electorate—65 percent—of any district in the state. In the
Republican primary, Haralson faced former Representative
James T. Rapier, who had previously held the Second
District seat in the 43rd Congress (1873–1875).15
Haralson and Rapier belonged to different factions
within the Alabama Republican Party. Rapier allied with
Alabama Senator George Eliphaz Spencer and Haralson
with former governor William Hugh Smith. At the district
convention, Rapier appeared to receive the votes necessary to
win the nomination. Haralson, however, left the convention
and mobilized his supporters in another building nearby,
where he was subsequently nominated. By the end of the
night, both men claimed to be the Republican standard-bearer
in the Fourth District. “That was a difference of
opinion between Mr. Rapier’s friends and me,” Haralson
later recalled. “I thought I was a regular nominee, and he
thought he was a regular nominee.” Because both Haralson
and Rapier appeared on the ballot, they split the substantial
Republican ticket, emerging with 34 and 28 percent of
the vote, respectively. Democrat Charles Miller Shelley—a
former Confederate general and the Selma sheriff—won the
election with a 38 percent plurality.16
Haralson contested the election, claiming Shelley
had unfairly selected the inspectors at the polling places.
As sheriff, Shelley had the power to appoint the three
inspectors at each site. He always appointed two Democrats
and one Black Republican who could not read or write,
thereby enabling his Democratic allies to manipulate the
election. After inspectors threw out many of Haralson’s
votes, he protested that there had been plenty of Black
Republicans available to work as inspectors who could
read and write, and understood the election process.17
In February 1877, with his case pending before the
Committee on Elections, Haralson provided detailed
testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections investigating Alabama’s recent elections in 1874, 1875, and 1876. Haralson responded to
questions related to polling sites, political factions, and the
violence and intimidation Black voters faced in his district.
He spoke specifically about his own difficulties in the 1876
election, and how local election officials threw out the
crucial votes that would have guaranteed his victory.18
Haralson’s testimony outlined the process by which
Democrats used widespread election fraud to disenfranchise
Black Americans in the late nineteenth century. He
described how local Democratic officials commandeered
the vote certification process, throwing out ballots and
manipulating tallies to manufacture sizeable winning
majorities. “If they wanted to make it one hundred
thousand,” he said, “they could do it.” He also discussed
the ways White and Black Republicans faced economic
reprisals, threats to their homes and family, and violent
attacks from Democrats. Haralson told the panel of several
threats against his life, including from his opponent Shelley,
who threatened him at gunpoint during the campaign. If
Democrats regained control of the state government, he
warned, they “would inaugurate slavery in a new form; not
such as it was, but by depriving us of our right to vote; and
the gentlemen who used to own us would represent us, and
get up in the American Congress and say that we voted for
them and sent them there, when we did not.”19
Haralson acknowledged the difficulty he faced in
unseating Shelley. “I know that it is a novel and hazardous
thing for a negro to contest before a Democratic House a
white man’s claim to a seat,” he said in an April 1878 letter
to the editor of the Washington Post. But Haralson insisted
that he had won. “Mr. Shelley is no more entitled to the
seat in the Forty-fifth Congress than the Sultan of Turkey,
and is only here by taking advantage of his own wrong.”
Haralson submitted papers to the Committee on Elections
and took additional testimony in the summer of 1878, but
the committee never issued a formal report on his challenge
and the House opted not to consider the case before the
term expired in March 1879.20
While battling to unseat Shelley in the 45th Congress,
Haralson won the Republican nomination for 1878
election. The campaign between the formerly enslaved
Haralson and the ex-Confederate Shelley was again fraught
with violence and intimidation by White Democrats
against Black voters. Officials reported that Shelley had
captured 55 percent of the vote to win a seat in the 46th
Congress (1879–1881), but Haralson suspected that
Democratic election supervisors had manipulated ballot
boxes throughout the district, costing him votes. Haralson
began to collect evidence, but several local judges refused
to take affidavits from witnesses. When he was finally able
to solicit the aid of Republican judge George Craig, Shelley
supporters jailed his witnesses and attempted to have
Haralson and his lawyer imprisoned under false charges.
While traveling between Montgomery and Selma, Haralson
was attacked by an armed mob and ordered to leave the
state. Fearing for his life, he fled to Washington, DC.21
Haralson persevered and submitted evidence to the
Committee on Elections to contest Shelley’s victory. In
April 1879, Haralson sent a memorial to the committee
stating his claim to the seat. The committee finally
responded to Haralson in January 1880, and requested
additional evidence, threatening to dismiss the case if he
did not provide the documentation. Haralson criticized the
committee’s delay and requested a “proper hearing.” He also
demanded the removal of Harris, the chair, and another
Democrat, Ezekiel John Ellis of Louisiana, before he agreed
to appear before the committee. Ultimately, the committee
never ruled on Haralson’s claim.22
In May 1880, Haralson traveled to Chicago, Illinois, to
attend the Republican National Convention. The election
that fall carried high stakes, he told the Chicago Tribune.
“If we are beaten this time,” Haralson declared, “white
men can live in the South, but not negroes.” He predicted
a Democratic administration would tilt the balance of
power—that Democrats would use the Supreme Court to
sanction their states’ rights doctrine and “undo everything”
Republicans had passed during Reconstruction. Haralson
also speculated that Democrats would “increase the
Supreme Court bench” to get their desired results. Haralson
also questioned the candidacy of President Grant, whom
he had supported in the past but was now in pursuit of an
unprecedented third term in office. Haralson predicted
Grant had no chance in the South. “How could he carry
a Southern State when we couldn’t hold them with all the
power of his Administration at our back?” he asked. “He has
no power now, and power is greater than his name. All the
election machinery is in the hands of the Democrats.”23
In 1884, Haralson revived his campaign for Alabama’s
Fourth District, where African Americans were 80 percent
of the population. He had spent the intervening years in
patronage positions, first as a clerk at Baltimore’s federal customs house and later as a clerk at the U.S. Department of the Interior. He also worked for the Pension Bureau in
Washington, DC, from 1882 to 1884. At the September
1884 Republican nominating convention, Haralson faced
George Craig—the judge who had helped him in 1878.
After a disputed vote, both candidates claimed to be the
nominee and ran as Republicans. In the general election,
Haralson received just 683 votes in a four-way contest.
Democrat Alexander Caldwell Davidson won easily with
64 percent of the vote, garnering twice as many votes as
Craig who finished second.24
Haralson remained active in Alabama Republican
politics, but by 1891 he had settled in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
He worked in what was known as the pension business,
helping potential applicants—soldiers, widows, and
children—compile information and follow the strict
guidelines to secure federal pensions. An 1894 article in
the Washington Post noted that Haralson did “the largest
pension business in the State.” In December 1894, he was
convicted of forgery in federal court and sentenced to two
years in prison. Haralson served his sentence in Albany,
New York.25
The circumstances of Haralson’s death have been subject
to much speculation. In the 1920s, a congressional aide
tasked with compiling and updating the Biographical
Directory of the United States Congress received and published
information that Haralson had been “killed by wild beasts”
near Denver, Colorado, in 1916. This mysterious end to
Haralson’s life, however, cannot be verified, and recent
research makes clear that the individual in that account was
most likely not former Representative Jeremiah Haralson
of Alabama. Ultimately, the date and manner of Haralson’s
death remain unknown.26
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