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RAINEY, Joseph Hayne

Born enslaved, Joseph H. Rainey was the first African-American lawmaker elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the first Black American to preside over the House, and the longest-serving African American in Congress during Reconstruction. Like many Representatives of the era, Rainey had a limited legislative record, but he was one of the House’s most able orators and labored tirelessly in committee. During his more than eight years in the House, Rainey worked to pass civil rights legislation, fund public schools, and guarantee equal protection under the law. Throughout, he sought to use his position to advocate for the concerns of African Americans on the House Floor. “I can only raise my voice,” Rainey said in 1877, “and I would do it if it were the last time I ever did it, in defense of my rights and in the interests of my oppressed people.”¹

Joseph Rainey was born on June 21, 1832, in Georgetown, South Carolina, a seaside town surrounded by low country rice plantations. Much of his early life is difficult to document. His parents were enslaved,

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Joseph Hayne Rainey

Born: June 21, 1832 in Georgetown, South Carolina

Died: August 1, 1887 in Georgetown, South Carolina

United States Representative, 1870–1879

Republican from South Carolina

The first African American in the House of Representatives and the second in the U..S. Congress, he served for nearly a decade (1870-79), the longest-serving African American in Congress until the 1950s.
Born a slave in Georgetown, South Carolina, Rainey’s father was able to buy freedom for himself and his family in the early 1840s.
During the Civil War, Rainey was forced to work for the Confederate States of America building fortifications and serving as a steward on vessels called blockade-runners. He and his wife were able to escape from the Confederates on one of the ships that traveled to Bermuda. After the war, Rainey returned to South Carolina and got involved in Republican politics.
Rainey, a businessman before he was a politician, maintained an active interest in investments during his career.
Rainey died of congestive fever on August 1, 1887 at the
Rainey was the first black man to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Congressman. Rainey was born a slave in Georgetown to Edward L. Rainey and his wife Gracia on June 21, 1832. His father, a barber, purchased the family’s freedom, and they moved to Charleston about 1846. The elder Rainey also purchased two slaves. By 1860 Joseph Rainey had become a barber at Charleston’s fashionable Mills House hotel.
In 1859 Rainey traveled to Philadelphia, where he married Susan (maiden name unknown). During the Civil War, Rainey was compelled to serve as a steward on a blockade-runner and then to work on Confederate fortifications. He fled with his wife to Bermuda in 1862 on a blockade-runner and resumed barbering, first in St. George and then in Hamilton. In 1865 he returned to Charleston and–accompanied by his elder brother Edward–participated in the Colored People’s Convention at Zion Presbyterian Church. Attendees sought ways in which to advance “the interests of our people.” Rainey was also elected to represent Georgetown in the 1868 constitutional conven