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Emanuel Fortune

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Emanuel Fortune
Member of the Florida House of Representatives
from the Jackson County district
In office
1868–1870
Personal details
Born(1833-01-03)January 3, 1833
near Marianna, Florida, U.S.
DiedJanuary 27, 1897(1897-01-27) (aged 64)
Resting placeOld City Cemetery
Political partyRepublican

Emanuel Fortune (January 3, 1833 – January 27, 1897) was an American shoemaker, farmer, and political leader who represented Jackson County, Florida at the 1868 Florida Constitutional Convention and in the Florida House of Representatives before being forced to flee and re-establishing himself in Duval County, Florida, where he held several offices.[1] He served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1868 to 1870.[2]

Fortune was born into slavery in 1833 on the Russ Plantation near Marianna, Florida. Fortune worked as a shoemaker before entering politics.[3] Fortune was an African Methodist Episcopal Church layman and was appointed to the county board of voter registration.[4] In the 1850s, Fortune married Sarah Jane Miers. The couple's son, Timothy Thomas Fortune, became a noted radical newspaper editor and activist for African American rights.[5]

Fortune was elected to the 1868 Florida Constitutional Convention as one of four representatives for Jackson County.[5][4] Fortune was forced to leave Jackson County because he believed his life was threatened by white supremacists[6] and served the remainder of his elected term in Jacksonville.[3]

In November 1871, Jackson testified at the United States Senate Select Committee on Outrages in Southern States, a special session of the 42nd United States Congress that investigated Ku Klux Klan violence in North Carolina and Florida.[7][8] Jackson was questioned by the chairman of the committee, Henry Wilson, and Thomas F. Bayard.[9] Fortune testified about the difficulty Black farmers had in obtaining small parcels of land and the racially motivated attacks and violence that he had witnessed.[9][10]

Fortune is buried at the Old Jacksonville City Cemetery in Duval County, Florida.

A photograph of Fortune appears in Canter Brown Jr.'s book, Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867-1924.

References

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  1. ^ Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867 - 1924 by Canter Brown Jr. University of Alabama Press (1998) pages 88 and 89
  2. ^ Freedom's Lawmakers by Eric Foner Louisiana State University Press (1996) pages 77 and 78
  3. ^ a b G a -J C T S Alumni Association (1 December 1999). Jackson County, Florida. Arcadia Publishing. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-7385-0098-0.
  4. ^ a b T. Thomas Fortune (30 September 2014). After War Times: An African American Childhood in Reconstruction-Era Florida. University of Alabama Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-8173-1836-9.
  5. ^ a b Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (2005). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press. p. 689. ISBN 978-0-19-517055-9.
  6. ^ Williams, Kidada E. I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2023.
  7. ^ "United States Senate: A History of Notable Senate Investigations". United States Senate. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  8. ^ "Landmark Legislation: The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871". United States Senate. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  9. ^ a b Congressional Series of United States Public Documents. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1872. p. 94.
  10. ^ Mitchell Snay (1 September 2010). Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction. LSU Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-8071-5481-6.
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