James H. Alston

James H. Alston was a state legislator in Alabama. He served in the legislature in 1868 and from 1869 to 1879.

Not to be confused with the Church of Scotland minister James Alston

Life and career

Alston was born into slavery in Alabama.[1] While a slave, he learned how to read and write and trained to become a shoemaker. During the American Civil War, a group of Confederate soldiers with the Tuskegee Light Infantry Company raised $1,800 (equivalent to $52,764 in 2022) to purchase him to act as their drummer. Alston was later joined by another drummer and stayed with the company until he was freed by the conclusion of the war.[2] In 1867 he organized the Union League in Tuskegee and recruited 400 other freedmen and their supporters to join.[3] While working there, he and other freedmen threatened with death by members of the Ku Klux Klan if they did not give up their land, resulting in many freedmen leaving the area.[4]

He was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives as the representative from Macon County in 1868.[5] Tuskegee Democratic party officials felt so threatened by his election that they offered him $3,000 (equivalent to $65,955 in 2022) to not seek reelection, an offer Alston refused.[2]

On June 4, 1870, after a contentious meeting of the Macon County Republican Party, Alston and his wife were shot at while inside their home. While both survived, Alston was shot in both the hip and shoulder and his pregnant wife was hit in the foot. A later examination of his property determined that at least fourteen shots had been fired and that if Alston had not been lying in bed he would have been killed. Several of Alston's political opponents had made threatening statements towards him at the party meeting earlier in the day.[6][7] Several of his opponents were arrested for the shooting and Alston left Tuskegee soon after. Later, testifying before an investigative committee, Alton said that he was actually shot by white members of the Macon County Democratic Party, naming Cullen A. Battle as one of the shooters.[2][8]

In 1871 Alston served as a delegate to the meeting of the Colored National Labor Union's Alabama convention.[9]

In 2011, Alston was named on a historical marker in Montgomery, Alabama along with other African American legislators who served during the Reconstruction era.[10]

See also

References
  1. Work, Monroe (1920). "Some Negro Members of Reconstruction Conventions and Legislatures and of Congress". The Journal of Negro History. 5 (1): 67. doi:10.2307/2713503. JSTOR 2713503.
  2. Ferguson III, Benny Pryor (1987). The Bands of the Confederacy: An Examination of the Musical and Military Contributions of the Bands and Musicians of the Confederate States of America (PDF) (PhD thesis). North Texas State University. pp. 442–445.
  3. Schweninger, Loren (1978). "Alabama Blacks and the Congressional Reconstruction Acts of 1867" (PDF). Alabama Review. 31: 186.
  4. Fitzgerald, Michael W. (1989). ""To Give Our Votes to the Party": Black Political Agitation and Agricultural Change in Alabama, 1865-1870". The Journal of American History. 76 (2): 504. doi:10.2307/1907987. JSTOR 1907987 – via JSTOR.
  5. "Alabama Legislature". Daily State Sentinel. Montgomery, Alabama. 1868-04-04. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-01-10 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Shooting of Mr. Alston". Alabama State Journal. Montgomery, Alabama. 1870-06-10. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-01-11 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. Trammell Jr., Guy (2019-09-09). "Voting more important to emphasize than politics". Foster's Daily Democrat. Retrieved 2023-01-10.
  8. Fleming, Walter L. (1905). Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. Columbia University press. p. 687. ISBN 9780231906586 – via Ancestry.com.
  9. Foner, Philip S.; Lewis, Ronald L., eds. (1978). The Black Worker, Volume 2: The Black Worker During the Era of the National Labor Union. Temple University Press. p. 120. doi:10.2307/j.ctvn5tvwc. JSTOR j.ctvn5tvwc.8.
  10. Black Members of the Alabama Legislature Who Served During The Reconstruction Period of 1868-1879. Montgomery. 2011.
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