Frederick Madison Roberts (September 14, 1879 – July 19, 1952) was an American newspaper owner and editor, educator and business owner; he became a politician, the first known man of African American descent elected to the California State Assembly.  He served there for 16 years and became known as "dean of the assembly."  He has been honored as the first person of African-American descent to be elected to public office among the states on the West Coast.

Roberts was a great-grandson of Sally Hemings of Monticello and President Thomas Jefferson.

Early life and education
Roberts was born on September 14, 1879, in Chillicothe, Ohio, the son of Andrew Jackson Roberts (1852–1927), a graduate of Oberlin College, and Ellen Wayles Hemings (1856–1940), the daughter of Madison Hemings and Mary Hughes McCoy, a free woman of color. Ellen was 5'10" with blue eyes, and the granddaughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. (When the Jefferson biographer Fawn Brodie saw a family photo of Ellen, she said she could see the strong resemblance to Jefferson.)

When Frederick was six, his family moved in 1885 to Los Angeles, where his father established the first black-owned mortuary in the city. The Roberts had a second son, William Giles Roberts. They and their descendants became prominent in the Los Angeles area, with a strong tradition of college education, and working in public service. Frederick Roberts attended Los Angeles High School and became its first known graduate of African-American descent.

Roberts began college at the University of Southern California (USC) where he majored in pre-law. He continued at Colorado College, where he graduated. He also attended the Barnes-Worsham School of Embalming and Mortuary Science.

Career and civic life
In 1908 Roberts started editing the Colorado Springs Light newspaper.  While in Colorado, he also served as deputy assessor for El Paso County. He went to Mound Bayou, Mississippi where he served some years as principal of Mound Bayou Normal and Industrial Institute, one of a number of schools founded for African Americans in the segregated state system.

In 1912, Roberts returned to Los Angeles, where he founded The New Age Dispatch newspaper  (later called New Age), which he edited until 1948. When he partnered with his father in the mortuary business, they named it A.J. Roberts & Son. Eventually he took it over.

Roberts, a newspaper editor and business owner, emerged as a prominent figure in the burgeoning African-American community of Los Angeles. During the 20th century, he witnessed the influx of people migrating from the South to various northern, midwestern, and western states, known as the Great Migration. Additionally, Roberts actively participated in the Methodist church and held memberships in two influential organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban League. These associations, established in the early 20th century, aimed to advocate for the political and civil rights of black people.

Marriage and family
In 1921 Roberts married Pearl Hinds, who had studied at the Boston Conservatory of Music. They had daughters Gloria, who became a professional classical pianist, and Patricia, who lived in Los Angeles.

Political career

In 1918 Roberts was elected to the California State Assembly from the 62nd District as a Republican in a hard-fought campaign, during which his chief rival made racial slurs against him. While in office, Roberts sponsored legislation to establish the University of California at Los Angeles and improve public education, and proposed several civil rights and anti-lynching measures.  In June 1922, he welcomed Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey of the UNIA to Los Angeles and rode in his parade car.

Roberts was re-elected repeatedly and served a continuous total of 16 years, becoming known as the "dean of the assembly." He was a friend of Earl Warren, governor of California who became Chief Justice of the United States. In the 1934 mid-term elections, after the election of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president two years previously in the midst of the Great Depression, Roberts was defeated by a Democratic African-American candidate, Augustus F. Hawkins. Following his 1934 California State Assembly defeat, Roberts ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives on two occasions.

Beginning in the late 1930s and the early 1940s, the second wave of the Great Migration brought tens of thousands of African Americans from the Southern United States to the Los Angeles area for jobs in the growing defense industries. In 1946, Roberts campaigned for the 14th Congressional District against incumbent Helen Gahagan Douglas, but she kept her seat. A few years later, Douglas lost a hotly contested U.S. Senate race to Republican Richard M. Nixon.

On the evening of July 18, 1952, a few days after attending the 1952 Republican National Convention, Roberts sustained serious injuries when the car he was driving was struck by another vehicle near his Los Angeles home. He died the following afternoon at Los Angeles County General Hospital. Roberts is interred at Evergreen Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.

Legacy
 1957  - The city of Los Angeles dedicated Frederick M. Roberts Park, 4700 Honduras St., in his memory.
 February 25, 2002 - The California State Senate honored Frederick Madison Roberts for his contributions and service to the State of California, with a unanimous vote for Senate Resolution 26, authored by Senator Ray Haynes (R-Riverside).
 February 2006, Mervyn M. Dymally of the California State Legislature featured the biography of Frederick M. Roberts on his website to honor early political leaders as part of Black History Month.

See also
List of African-American officeholders (1900–1959)

Citations

External links
 California Legislative Black Caucus
 
 Join California Frederick M. Roberts

Further reading
 Delilah L. Beasley, Negro Trail Blazers of California, Los Angeles: 1919, pp. 137, 215–16. (An early picture of Roberts appears on p. 40.)
 Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974
 Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998
 Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008
 Shannon Lanier and Jane Feldman, Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2000 (with photos of Jefferson descendants on both sides)

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Republican Party members of the California State Assembly
1879 births
1952 deaths
African-American state legislators in California
Road incident deaths in California
Politicians from Chillicothe, Ohio
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hemings family
Jefferson family
Burials at Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles
Politicians from Los Angeles
19th-century American people
20th-century American politicians
African-American men in politics
20th-century African-American businesspeople
20th-century American businesspeople
프레더릭 매디슨 로버츠(Frederick Madison Roberts, 1879년 9월 14일 ~ 1952년 7월 19일)는 흑인 출신 최초의 미국 주 의회 의원이자, 미국의 신문인이자 편집자, 교육자, 기업인이다. 아프리카계 미국인 출신으로 최초로 캘리포니아 주의회 의원에 당선된 인물이다. 토머스 제퍼슨과 샐리 헤밍스의 아들인 매디슨 헤밍스의 외손자였다.

생애 
로버츠는 1879년 9월 14일 오하이오주 칠리코시에서 오벌린 대학 (Oberlin College)의 학장인 앤드루 잭슨 로버츠(Andrew Jackson Roberts, 1852 - 1927)와 샐리 헤밍스의 손녀인 엘렌 웨일스 헤밍스(Ellen Wayles Hemings, 1856-1940)의 아들로 태어났다. 엘렌 웨일스 헤밍스는 매디슨 헤밍스의 딸이었다. 프레더릭이 여섯 살 때 그의 가족은 로스 앤젤레스로 이사했고, 그의 아버지 앤드루 잭슨 로버츠는 최초의 흑인 소유의 장례식장을 설립하였다. 로버츠는 둘째 아들로, 그에게는 형 윌리엄 자일스 로버츠가 있었다.

로버츠와 그 후손들은 대학 진학에 강한 의욕을 보였고, 로스 앤젤레스 지역에서는 명망높은 집안이 되었다. 프레드릭 로버츠는 로스 앤젤레스 고등학교와 대학의 최초의 아프리카 계 미국인 졸업생이 되었다. 로버트는 사우스 캘리포니아 대학에서 법학 예비 과정을 이수하였고, 콜로라도 전문대학(Colorado College)에서도 수학했다. 1908년에 로버트는 콜로라도 스프링스 라이트 신문의 편집인이 되었다. 콜로라도에 있는 동안 엘 파소 카운티의 부(副) 감정평가사가 되었고, 미시시피에서는 모드 뷰 일반&공업 고등학교(Mound Bayou Normal and Industrial Institute)의 교장이 되었다. 이는 아프리카계 미국인을 위해 설립된 학교 중 하나이다.

1912년 로버츠는 로스 앤젤레스로 돌아와 뉴 에이지 파견 신문의 일을 보았다. 또, 그는 아버지의 영안실 사업에도 협력하였다. 신문 편집자 및 비즈니스 소유자로, 로버츠는 로스 앤젤레스에서 성장, 아프리카 계 미국인 사회의 저명한 지도자가 되었다. 또 그는 그레이트 마이 그 레이션의 남감리 교회의 일원이되었다. 그 밖에 유색 인종의 발전을 위한 협회(NAACP)와 흑인 시민단체인 우르반 리그(Urban League)의 회원으로도 활동한다.

1918년 로버츠는 캘리포니아 주의회 의원 후보로 출마, 62 지구에서 공화당 소속 후보자로 자신의 최고 라이벌이었던 후보자와 경쟁했는데, 그는 인종 차별적 비방을 했다. 그럼에도 당선되어 흑인 최초로 주 의원이 되었다. 1921년 로버트는 페렐 힌츠(Pearl Hinds)와 결혼했다. 이어 이들은 보스턴 컨서버토리 (Boston Conservatory)에서 공부했다. 이들은 전문 피아니스트가 된 딸 글로리아와 로스엔젤레스에 거주한 다른 딸 패트리샤를 두었다. 의원 재직 중 후원 법안 수립 캘리포니아 대학교 로스앤젤레스의 설립을 추진함과 동시에 LA의 공공 교육을 개선하고, 여러 시민의 권리와 그에 대한 백인들의 폭력을 측정한다. 그는 3번을 캘리포니아 주의원으로 재선, 16년간 주의원으로 재직했다. 1934년에는 또다른 흑인으로 민주당 후보자로 출마한 아우구스투스 F. 호킨스와의 경쟁에서 패하여 낙선했다. 1946년에 로버츠는 캘리포니아의 14지구 하원 의원 선거구에서 헬렌 가하한 더글러스의 선거 운동을 지원하였다.

1952년 7월 18일 저녁에 1952 공화당 전당 대회에 참석하고 돌아오던 중 그가 운전하던 자동차가 자신의 집인 로스 앤젤레스 집 근처에 도착했을 때 갑자기 다른 차량에 의해 공격 당했다. 이 때 로버츠는 심각한 부상을 입었다. 그는 그 다음날 오후에 사망, 로스 앤젤레스 카운티의 종합 병원에 안치된다. 이어 그는 아내와 두 딸에 의해 상록 묘지에 안장된다.

참조

관련 서적 
 Delilah L. Beasley, Negro Trail Blazers of California, Los Angeles: 1919, pp. 137, 215-16. (An early picture of Roberts appears on p. 40.)
 Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974
 Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998
 Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008
 Shannon Lanier and Jane Feldman, Jefferson's Children: The Story of One American Family New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2000 (with photos of Jefferson descendants on both sides)

외부 링크 
 California Legislative Black Caucus

1879년 출생
1952년 사망
공화당 (미국) 당원
테러 피해자
헤밍스 가
토머스 제퍼슨
제퍼슨가
19세기 미국 사람
버클리 음악 대학 동문
캘리포니아주의 공화당 당원