Jefferson F. Long
Jefferson Franklin Long (March 3, 1836 – February 4, 1901) was a U.S. congressman from Georgia. He was the second African American sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives and the first African-American congressman from Georgia. Long was the first African-American Representative to speak on the floor of the U.S. House, opposing the Amnesty Bill that exempted former Confederates serving in the House from swearing allegiance to the Constitution. He remained the only African American to represent Georgia until Andrew Young was elected in 1972. Biography Long was born into slavery to an enslaved mother and a white father near the city of Knoxville in Crawford County, Georgia on March 3, 1836. He taught himself to read and write, an illegal act for slaves, while setting type for the newspaper in Macon, Georgia. By 1860 Long had married Lucinda Carhart and had started a family. By the end of the American Civil War an emancipated Long had become a successful merchant tailor in Macon, Georgia. Long had established himself as a prominent member of the Republican Party in 1867 and was elected in 1870 as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress to serve a term from January 16 to March