Jan. 13, 1990 

Douglas Wilder, who became the first Black American elected governor since Reconstruction, took office in Richmond, Virginia. 

Named after both abolitionist Frederick Douglass and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, he worked his way through Virginia Union University before being drafted into the Korean War. During the Battle of Pork Chop, he and two fellow soldiers were cut off from their unit. When they ran into 19 Chinese soldiers, they bluffed them into surrendering. Wilder was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his bravery. 

Back in the U.S., he became a lawyer, and in 1969 won a seat in the Virginia State Senate, becoming the first African American elected to the body since Reconstruction. In 1985, he was elected lieutenant governor, and four years later won as governor. The winning margin? Less than one-half percent.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Sen. Dean Kirby, second ranking leader of the state Senate, says many of the issues Mississippi lawmakers will be tackling this year are recurring ones: tax cuts, education funding, Medicaid expansion, and issues with the Public Employees Retirement System. He’s also helping lead court mandated redistricting that will likely result in do-over elections later this year for numerous lawmakers.

READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Jan. 12, 1865 

As the Civil War neared an end, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton met with local Black leaders in Savannah, Georgia. 

The Rev. Garrison Frazier, a 67-year-old imposing man, spoke for the group. Asked what slavery meant, he replied, “Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.” 

He told the Army leaders that they wanted to be free from the dominion of white men, wanted to be educated and wanted to own land they could work and earn a living. 

Asked if they would rather live scattered among the whites or in colonies by yourselves, Frazier replied, “I would prefer to live by ourselves, for there is a prejudice against us in the South that will take years to get over.” 

In response, Sherman issued Special Field Order 15, giving each freed family 40 acres of land along the Atlantic Coast. “The effect throughout the South was electric,” wrote historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., with freedmen settling on 400,000 acres of “Sherman Land.” 

Some also received mules left over from the battles, leading to the phrase “40 acres and a mule.” 

After President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, President Andrew Johnson took over, reversing Field Order 15 and smashing the dreams of Black Americans who had finally been freed.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.