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Robert Norton (born about 1840) was a former slave who became a member of the
Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...
from 1869 until 1874 and 1876 until 1883. He was one of three brothers who held office. His much older brother Frederick S. Norton was a member of the House of Delegates from 1869 until 1871, and his younger brother was Daniel M. Norton. The brothers were reportedly the children of a slave and her owner. They escaped to Troy, New York. Norton and his brother Daniel returned to
Yorktown, Virginia Yorktown is a town in York County, Virginia, United States. It is the county seat of York County, one of the eight original shires formed in Colony of Virginia, colonial Virginia in 1682. Yorktown's population was 195 as of the 2010 census, while ...
after the American Civil War. He was a shopkeeper and farmer. Running as an independent in 1874 for a seat in the U.S. Congress, he criticized his White Republican incumbent opponent, James H. Platt Jr., as a
carpetbagger In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War and were pe ...
and urged voters to elect a "colored" man. Democrat John Goode won the election in November 1874. Norton appeared on the
Readjuster Party The Readjuster Party was a bi-racial state-level political party formed in Virginia across party lines in the late 1870s during the turbulent period following the Reconstruction era that sought to reduce outstanding debt owed by the state. Readj ...
ticket in November 1881.


See also

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African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900 More than 1,500 African-American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy, disenfranchisement, and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern sta ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norton, Robert Members of the Virginia House of Delegates Readjuster Party politicians American freedmen Virginia independents 19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly Year of death missing Year of birth uncertain African-American politicians during the Reconstruction Era