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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 Emanuel was born to Dorah (Dora) Russ, the daughter of a mixed race enslaved woman and a Seminole Indian, and to Thomas Fortune, an Irishman killed in a duel when Emmanuel was 6 months old. Emanuel 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] Fortune married Sarah Jane Miers on June 5, 1866 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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