Caesar Perkins (March 1839 – September 22, 1910) was a member of the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...

, elected in both 1869 and 1887. He represented Buckingham County as a Republican.

Early life

Caesar Perkins was born into slavery in March 1839. His name is sometimes rendered as Ceasar Perkins. His parents' names were Joseph and Clarcy Mosely, but he used the name "Perkins" because it was the name of his master. It is not known how Perkins was freed from slavery. He was a Baptist minister.

Political career

In 1869, Perkins was elected to the

, and he was elected again in 1887; in both cases, he represented Buckingham County. In his first election, he defeated candidates from the Conservative Party. He was a Republican. During his first term, he voted to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

, which codified racial equality. In 1898, Perkins served at the state's Republican convention, which nominated Colonel R. T. Hubard (or Hubbard) for Congress. Hubard denied that Perkins had been promised anything for the nomination. Two years later, Perkins served again at the state's Republican convention, which again nominated Hubard for Congress. According to a newspaper account in 1904, he was the last-serving black member of the Virginia legislature. The same story, which caricatured what the writers called his "genuine darky dialect" (for instance, rendering part of his speech as "Yawl Democrats ..is 'bout ter let dis assembly break up widout keepin' yo' promis' ter pass on de licker question"), was reprinted years later in other newspapers.

Death

Perkins died on September 22, 1910.

References

Citations

Bibliography

Scholarship

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Newspapers

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins, Caesar 1839 births 1910 deaths African-American politicians during the Reconstruction Era African-American state legislators in Virginia Republican Party members of the Virginia House of Delegates 20th-century African-American politicians 19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly