Black History Knowledge — November 3

What happened on this day. These are the November 3 moments in Black history worth knowing, remembering, and passing on.

1868 — John Willis Menard becomes the first Black man elected to Congress [Q]

On November 3, 1868, John Willis Menard, an Illinois-born newspaper editor and Republican activist, won a special election for a New Orleans-based seat in the U.S. House. His Democratic opponent, Caleb Hunt, contested the result, and the House seated neither man. On February 27, 1869, Menard defended his claim and became the first African American to speak before the House while it was in session.

1874 — White Leaguers attack Black voters in Eufaula, Alabama

On Election Day, November 3, 1874, armed white men in Eufaula, Alabama, fired into a crowd of mostly unarmed Black men who had come to vote, killing at least six and wounding as many as 80. At a second polling place in Spring Hill, a mob destroyed the ballot box and killed the teenage son of the election supervisor, Judge Elias Keils. No white person was ever convicted; 1,200 Black residents of Eufaula voted in 1874, and only 10 in 1876.

1979 — Klansmen and Nazis kill five anti-Klan marchers in Greensboro [Q]

On November 3, 1979, members of the Ku Klux Klan and a neo-Nazi group opened fire on a ‘Death to the Klan’ rally in a public-housing neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina. Five demonstrators were killed. All-white juries acquitted the gunmen in state and federal criminal trials in 1980 and 1984.

1981 — Thirman Milner is elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut [Q]

Thirman L. Milner, a state representative, won Hartford’s mayoral election on November 3, 1981, and took office on December 1. He is widely cited as the first Black mayor elected by popular vote in New England. He served three terms and later sat in the Connecticut Senate.

1992 — Carol Moseley Braun is elected the first Black woman in the U.S. Senate

On November 3, 1992, Illinois voters elected Carol Moseley Braun to the U.S. Senate, making her the first African American woman senator and only the second Black senator since Reconstruction. A former state legislator and Cook County recorder of deeds, she defeated Republican Richard Williamson. She later served as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.