Thomas Whitmarsh Cardozo (December 19, 1838 (p. 186) – April 13, 1881) was an American educator, journalist, and public official during the Reconstruction Era in the United States. He served as State Superintendent of Education in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...

and is the first African American to have held the position.

Early life

Thomas Cardozo was born

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

in Charleston, South Carolina in 1838. His father, Isaac Nunez Cardozo, was part of a well-known Jewish family and was a weigher in the U.S. Customs House of Charleston for 24 years, until his death in 1855. Thomas's mother was Lydia Weston, a freed slave of mixed ancestry who was a seamstress. He had two older brothers,

Henry Cardozo Henry Cardozo (1830 - 1886) was a carpenter, shipbuilder, county auditor, and state senator in South Carolina. Early life Cardozo was born September 1830. Cardozo's mother, Lydia Weston, was African American and Native American, a former slave. ...

and

Francis Lewis Cardozo Francis Lewis Cardozo (February 1, 1836 – July 22, 1903) was an American clergyman, politician, and educator. When elected in South Carolina as Secretary of State in 1868, he was the first African American to hold a statewide office in the Uni ...

, and two older sisters, Lydia Frances Cardozo and Eslanda Cardozo. In Charleston, Thomas was among the "free-Negro elite" and went to private schools for free black children, mainly taught by free black teachers. He was also taught by his father Isaac and his uncle Jacob Cardozo, who was an economist and newspaper publisher. The

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geogra ...

and the

secession movement Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics lea ...

caused

free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...

to be concerned about being enslaved. When Isaac Cardozo died during this worsening time, Thomas's family lost their protector. Thomas was 17 at the time and became an apprentice in a company that manufactured rice-threshing machines. (Image 3) Column 1. Reprinted from Jackson ''Mississippi Pilot''. In 1857, two years after his father's death, Thomas moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

where he continued his education. In June 1858, his mother, sisters, and brother Henry left Charleston on the steamship Nashville for New York; by 1860 they had settled in Cleveland, Ohio. His brother Francis was in school in Glasgow, Scotland. At the Newburgh Collegiate Institute, Thomas took academic courses and trained to be a teacher. Before he could graduate, civil war broke out and he began teaching in 1861. He married Laura J. Williams, a teacher and accomplished musician who was from a mixed-race family in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

. Thomas and Laura became parents with a son, Alvin, born in 1863, and another son, Francis, in 1865.

Career in education

Shortly after the beginning of 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 state ...

, Cardozo began teaching in

Staten Island, New York Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and f ...

at the segregated school in Stapleton. On behalf of the African Americans there, in 1863 in the local newspaper he thanked "the friends and benefactors" for their aid after the

New York City draft riots The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white working-cla ...

had spread to Staten Island. In April 1865 at the end of the war, Thomas and his family moved from

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushing ...

, New York to his home town of Charleston, South Carolina. In Charleston in the challenging turmoil of the weeks following the end of the Civil War, he supervised the educational activities of the

American Missionary Association The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on in Albany, New York. The main purpose of the organization was abolition of slavery, education of African Americans, promotion of racial equality, ...

(AMA). He obtained building space and books. He supervised teachers, hired new teachers, and ran the AMA house for teachers who came down from the north. All this was in the context of disputes between the various aid agencies there. Cardozo was the first AMA school principal in Charleston at the Tappan School. A few months after he began work in Charleston, the AMA became aware of a previous affair that the married Thomas Cardozo had with a female student of his in New York. Also, the AMA was dissatisfied with his accounting of his expenditures back then and suspected that some of the expenditures went to the young woman. The AMA asked his brother Francis Cardozo to discuss this with him in Charleston. Francis reported back that Thomas had the affair through "weakness", had “not been deliberately wicked”, and didn't misappropriate any AMA funds. Thomas asked for forgiveness. In response, the AMA replaced Thomas with Francis around September 1865. Thomas stayed in Charleston and became a grocer for a few months until his store burnt down. He moved to

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

where he and his wife taught at the Negro Industrial School for a short time. When the school lost its funding in 1866, he and his family moved to Syracuse, New York. There, with the help of

Samuel Joseph May Samuel Joseph May (September 12, 1797 – July 1, 1871) was an American reformer during the nineteenth century who championed education, women's rights, and abolition of slavery. May argued on behalf of all working people that the rights of h ...

, he raised funds for teaching in Elizabeth City, North Carolina in a program of the New York Freedmen's Union Commission. In the spring of 1869, the Cardozos moved to Elizabeth City where Thomas and his wife taught for about four months until the program ended. They went back to the North to try to find support for their educational work in North Carolina. Cardozo brought with him a letter of commendation from North Carolina U. S. Senator

John Pool John Pool (June 16, 1826August 16, 1884) was a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of North Carolina between 1868 and 1873. He was also the uncle of Congressman Walter Freshwater Pool. He was born in Pasquotank County, North Carolina near ...

that was endorsed by North Carolina Governor

William Woods Holden William Woods Holden (November 24, 1818 – March 1, 1892) was an American politician who served as the 38th and 40th governor of North Carolina. He was appointed by President Andrew Johnson in 1865 for a brief term and then elected in 1868. He ...

and other state officials. After Cardozo gained the support of a branch of the Freedmen's Union Commission, he obtained a thousand dollars from the Freedmen's Bureau for construction of a

normal school A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

in Elizabeth City to train high school graduates to be teachers. It opened in the fall of 1870 with 123 students. In January 1871, Thomas Cardozo and his family moved to

Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vic ...

where he and his wife immediately began teaching. Several years later he served as State Superintendent of Education from 1874 to 1876. Cardozo proposed uniform textbooks for Mississippi schools during his tenure.

Career in politics

In New York, Cardozo had written in 1868 and 1869 in the ''

National Anti-Slavery Standard The ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'' was the official weekly newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society, established in 1840 under the editorship of Lydia Maria Child and David Lee Child. The paper published continuously until the ratificat ...

'' about the place for blacks in the evolving political situation of reconstruction. As a republican, Cardozo ran for Sheriff of Pasquotank County, North Carolina and lost on August 4, 1870. Five months later he moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi in January 1871. Because of the demographics of Mississippi, public office for Cardozo was a good possibility after satisfying the six-month residency requirement in July 1871. He joined the Republican Party, was elected circuit court clerk of

Warren County Warren County is the name of fourteen counties in the USA. Some are named after General Joseph Warren, who was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War: * Warren County, Georgia * Warren County, Illinois * Warren County ...

and took office on January 1, 1872. He wrote accounts of his experiences in Mississippi, including descriptions of his fellow Republican politicians, for the ''

New National Era ''New National Era'' (1870–1874) was an African American newspaper, published in Washington D.C. during the Reconstruction Era in the decade after the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Originally known as the ''New Era'', th ...

'' under the pseudonym "Civis". He was a delegate to the

1873 National Civil Rights Convention The National Civil Rights Convention of 1873 was held in Washington, D.C. W. Ogilvie photographed the convention which began December 9. It was covered by the '' New York Times''. History The Colored Conventions Movement included a long series of ...

in Washington, D.C. In November 1873, Cardozo was elected State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi, along with the election of Governor Adelbert Ames, Lieutenant Governor

Alexander K. Davis Alexander Kelso Davis was an American politician. He was a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives and Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi. He was impeached by the resurgent Democrats towards the end of the Reconstruction era in 1876. He ...

and Secretary of State James Hill. Although he was the first African-American to hold the post, Cardozo did not challenge the ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

'' racial segregation that existed in Mississippi schools. In August 1874, conservative whites took over the Vicksburg city government and Cardozo was charged with crimes while he was circuit court clerk in 1872. First he was charged with receiving money for falsified witness certificates and then additionally charged with embezzling money paid by land owners for redeeming land taken by the government for unpaid taxes. He appeared before a magistrate on September 7, 1874 and bond was posted. He was indicted in November 1874 and tried beginning May 6, 1875. The jury failed to reach a verdict. He was able to get the retrial moved from Vicksburg to Jackson with a new trial date in July 1876. After the first trial, the ongoing political attacks by conservative whites against Republican office holders turned into violence. On July 4, 1875 in Vicksburg, a white mob attacked a meeting where Cardozo was to speak, followed by street violence where several blacks were killed or injured. City officials helped Cardozo, the main target of the attacks, escape from the city. The occupying

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to th ...

began to withdraw from the South in 1875 in the last years of the Reconstruction era. White Democrats had regained control of the Mississippi state legislature by a program of violence and intimidation against Republican black voters. The legislators brought impeachment charges against Superintendent Cardozo and senate impeachment proceedings began February 11, 1876. The most incriminating charge was that he embezzled money from

Tougaloo University Tougaloo College is a private historically black college in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It was originally established in 1869 by New Yo ...

. Cardozo was granted permission to resign with the charges against him dismissed, and submitted his resignation on March 22, 1876. Leaving the politics, an upcoming trial in Jackson in July 1876, and the dangerous situation in Mississippi, Cardozo moved to

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

. There he worked for the postal service until his death from disease in 1881. He was forty-two. Thomas Cardozo Middle School in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

, of the

Jackson Public School District The Jackson Public School District (JPSD) or Jackson Public Schools (JPS) is a public school district serving the majority of Jackson, the state capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Mississippi. Established in 1888, it is the second la ...

, is named for him and opened in 2010.

Early life

Career in education

Career in politics

See also

Notes

References

Further reading