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]

See also

References
  1. 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.
  2. 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 |journal= (help)
  3. Grant, Donald Lee (1993). The Way it was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia. University of Georgia Press. p. 119. ISBN 9780820323299.
  4. Representatives, USA House of (1872). House Documents. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 954–955.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
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