David Abner Sr. (1826–1902) was an American politician who served in the

Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abou ...

. Born into

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

Selma, Alabama Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About ...

, he served in the

Fourteenth Texas Legislature The Fourteenth Texas Legislature met from January 13, 1874 to March 15, 1875 in two regular sessions. All members of the House of Representatives and about half of the members of the Senate were elected in 1873. Sessions *14th First regular sessio ...

for District 5 and sat on the Education Committee. He was a delegate to the 1875 Texas Constitutional Convention.

Early life

At the age of seventeen, Abner in 1843 was taken to Upshur County in

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region consi ...

. After being

emancipated Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchis ...

after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, he moved to Marshall in Harrison County, also in East Texas. There he rented a plot of land and a mule from the sister of his original master. A few years later, he purchased the farm and became wealthy.

Political life

In 1873, Abner was appointed to the executive committee of the first Colored Men's State Convention. Later, he was elected to the position of treasurer for Harrison County. In 1874, Abner was elected to the legislature for Harrison and Rusk counties. Halfway through his term in the state House, in August 1875, a convention was called to rewrite the 1869

Texas State Constitution The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that establishes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Texas, and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of Texas. The current document was adopted on Feb ...

. Abner was one of three delegates elected to the convention from the Texas State Senate district that made up Harison and Rusk counties. He was the only Republican at the convention who voted for a clause in the state constitution that prohibited the state from spending money for the encouragement of immigration. After his state legislative term, Abner was the vice president of the Republican State Convention in 1876.

After politics

Son, David Abner Jr. In 1881, Abner helped establish Bishop College, and served as one of its first trustees. In 1884, his son David Abner, Jr., became the first black man to graduate from a Texas college, and later became president of

Guadalupe College Guadalupe College was a private Baptist college for African Americans in Seguin, Texas. It was established in 1884 and opened officially in 1887. Its founding was chiefly due to the efforts of William B. Ball, who later became its president. D ...

and then of Conroe College.ABNER, DAVID, JR.
at the Texas State Historical Association; by Diana J. Kleiner. Retrieved October 30, 2013 Abner died in 1902 in Marshall, Texas, and is interred there at a family cemetery.

Notes

* Article 16, section 56 of the Texas State Constitution states: "The Legislature shall have no power to appropriate any of the public money for the establishment and maintenance of a bureau of immigration, or for any purpose of bringing immigrants to this State." It was part of the Constitution from 1875 until it was repealed in 2001.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abner, David 1826 births 1902 deaths Republican Party members of the Texas House of Representatives African-American politicians during the Reconstruction Era African-American state legislators in Texas Politicians from Selma, Alabama People from Upshur County, Texas People from Marshall, Texas Burials in Texas 19th-century American slaves 20th-century African-American people