In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first African-American governor of a U.S. state.
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (May 10, 1837 December 21, 1921) was an American publisher, politician, and Union Army officer. Pinchback was the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state and the second African American (after Oscar Dunn) to serve as lieutenant governor of a U.S. state. A Republican, Pinchback served as acting governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873. He was one of the most prominent African-American officeholders during the Reconstruction Era.
Pinchback was born free in Macon, Georgia to Eliza Stewart and her master, William Pinchback, a white planter. His father raised the younger Pinchback and his siblings as his own children on his large plantation in Mississippi. After the death of his father in 1848, his mother took Pinchback and siblings to the free state of Ohio to ensure their continued freedom. After the start of the American Civil War, Pinchback traveled to Union-occupied New Orleans. There he raised several companies for the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, and became one of the few African Americans commissioned as officers in the Union Army.
Pinchback remained in New Orleans after the Civil War, becoming active in Republican politics. He won election to the Louisiana State Senate in 1868 and became the president pro tempore of the state senate. He became the acting Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana following the death of Oscar Dunn in 1871 and briefly served as acting governor of Louisiana after Henry C. Warmoth was impeached. After the contested 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election, Republican legislators elected Pinchback to the United States Senate. Due to the controversy over the 1872 elections in the state, which were challenged by white Democrats, Pinchback was never seated in Congress.
Pinchback served as a delegate to the 1879 Louisiana constitutional convention, where he helped gain support for the founding of Southern University. In a Republican federal appointment, he served as the surveyor of US customs of New Orleans from 1882 to 1885. Later he worked with other leading men of color to challenge the segregation of Louisiana's public transportation system, leading to the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. To escape increasing racial oppression, he moved with his family to Washington, D.C. in 1892, where they were among the elite people of color. He died there in 1921.
Louisiana (Standard French: État de Louisiane [lwizjan] (listen) or La Louisiane [/lwi.zjan/]; Spanish: Luisiana) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs). The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans.
Much of the state's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp. These contain a rich southern biota; typical examples include birds such as ibises and egrets. There are also many species of tree frogs, and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a natural process in the landscape and has produced extensive areas of longleaf pine forest and wet savannas. These support an exceptionally large number of plant species, including many species of terrestrial orchids and carnivorous plants. Louisiana has more Native American tribes than any other southern state, including four that are federally recognized, ten that are state recognized, and four that have not received recognition.Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by a mixture of 18th–century French, Saint Dominican, Spanish, French Canadian, Acadian, Native American, and African cultures that they are considered to be exceptional in the U.S. Before the American purchase of the territory in 1803, the present–day U.S. state of Louisiana had been both a French colony and for a brief period a Spanish one. In addition, colonists imported various African peoples as slaves in the 18th century. Many came from peoples of the same region of West Africa, thus concentrating their culture; Filipinos also arrived during colonial Louisiana. In the post–Civil War environment, Anglo Americans increased the pressure for Anglicization, and in 1921, English was for a time made the sole language of instruction in Louisiana schools before a policy of multilingualism was revived in 1974. There has never been an official language in Louisiana, and the state constitution enumerates "the right of the people to preserve, foster, and promote their respective historic, linguistic, and cultural origins."Based on national averages, Louisiana frequently ranks low among the U.S. in terms of health, education, and development, and high in measures of poverty. In 2018, Louisiana was ranked as the least healthy state in the country, with high levels of drug-related deaths and excessive alcohol consumption, while it has had the highest homicide rate in the United States since at least the 1990s.