Pinchback: America's First Black Governor

Born to a formerly enslaved mother and a white planter father, P. B. S. Pinchback (1837-1921) became the first African American governor in the United States. His tenure as governor of Louisiana was brief--a mere thirty-five days--but he remains one of the most prominent African American officeholders during the Reconstruction Era. Yet despite being a pivotal figure in the post-Civil War South, attempts to tell his story have been incomplete. From the deep influence of a mother who had spen...