Robert Gleed

Robert Gleed, Sr. (1836 – July 24, 1916), was an American politician, merchant, and civic leader.[1] He served as a Republican in the Mississippi State Senate during the Reconstruction era.[2]

Robert Gleed, Sr.
Senator
In office
1870–1875
Personal details
Born1836
Virginia, U.S.
DiedJuly 24, 1916(1916-07-24) (aged 79–80)
Harris County, Texas, U.S.
Resting placeSandfield Cemetery
Political partyRepublican
OccupationPolitician, merchant

Biography

Robert Gleed, Sr. was born in 1836 into slavery in Virginia.[1] He had remained enslaved until the end of the American Civil War, around 1865; and he was arrested as a runaway slave in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi in 1863.[1][3]

Gleed was elected to Mississippi state legislature in either 1869, or 1870.[1][4] In 1871, he testified for Congressional Investigators about the role of Southern newspapers, and the Ku Klux Klan in fomenting violence and resistance to Reconstruction-era efforts in Mississippi in the years after the American Civil War.[4]

He resigned from the state senate in 1873 after violent white mobs lynched seven "recalcitrant blacks". He had four children.[1] After several of his fellow African Americans were killed before an election in 1875, he relocated to Paris, Texas. He later returned to Columbus, Mississippi, but fled again after white mobs threatened him.

He campaigned for sheriff in Lowndes County in 1875.[5] He met with leading Democratic Party representatives and attempted to appease them before the election.[6] He was unsuccessful, and his home was attacked and burned as well as some of his neighbors' homes.[7]

He died on July 24, 1916, in Harris County, Texas. Gleed is buried at Sandfield Cemetery in Columbus, Mississippi.[2][8][9][10]

References
  1. Baldwin, DeeDee (2022). "Robert Gleed". Against All Odds: The First Black Legislators in Mississippi. Mississippi State University Libraries. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/GAX6F. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
  2. "Sandfield Cemetery". The Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. Retrieved 2023-02-17.
  3. Harrison, Heather (May 16, 2023). "Eighth of May Celebration Recalls Slavery After Emancipation in Columbus". Mississippi Free Press. Retrieved May 21, 2023.
  4. Green, Hilary N. "Curbing Freedom (Klan violence): Robert Gleed". Department of Gender and Race Studies, University of Alabama.
  5. Lewan, Todd; Breed, Allen G. "Taking Away the Vote — and a Black Man's Land". The Authentic Voice.
  6. "REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO REQUIRE INTO THE MISSISSIPPI ELECTION OF 1875, WITH THE TESTIMONY AND DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE". June 26, 1876 – via Google Books.
  7. Fellman, Michael (June 26, 2010). In the Name of God and Country: Reconsidering Terrorism in American History. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300155013 – via Google Books.
  8. "Sandfield Cemetary [sic] – MS Civil Rights Project".
  9. "HBO documentary to feature area African-American history event". The Commercial Dispatch. 8 May 2019.
  10. "Sandfield Cemetery". The Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. Retrieved 2023-02-17.


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