P. B. S. Pinchback

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (May 10, 1837  – December 21, 1921) was the first non-white and first person of African American descent to become governor of a U.S. state. A Republican, he served as the 24th Governor of Louisiana for 35 days, from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873. Nicholas Lemann, in Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, described Pinchback as "an outsized figure: newspaper publisher, gambler, orator, speculator, dandy, mountebank – served for a few months as the state's Governor and claimed seats in both houses of Congress following disputed elections but could not persuade the members of either to seat him." Pinchback was born in May 1837 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, to Eliza Stewart, a former...