Arthur Mitchell Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Arthur Mitchell
OCCUPATION: U.S. Representative
BIRTH DATE: December 22, 1883
DEATH DATE: May 09, 1968
EDUCATION: Tuskegee Institute, Columbia University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Lafayette, Alabama
PLACE OF DEATH: Petersburg, Virginia
Full Name: Arthur Wergs Mitchell

Best Known For

Arthur Mitchell became the first African American Democrat elected to Congress in 1934.

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Arthur Wergs Mitchell

APA Style

Arthur Wergs Mitchell. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 12:43, Jun 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168.

Harvard Style

Arthur Wergs Mitchell. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168 [Accessed 19 Jun 2013].

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"Arthur Wergs Mitchell." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 19 2013, 12:43 http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168.

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"Arthur Wergs Mitchell," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168 [accessed Jun 19, 2013].

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"Arthur Wergs Mitchell," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168 (accessed Jun 19, 2013).

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Arthur Wergs Mitchell [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168.

Bluebook Style

Arthur Wergs Mitchell, http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168 (last visited Jun 19, 2013).

AMA Style

Arthur Wergs Mitchell. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-mitchell-9410168. Accessed Jun 19, 2013.

Synopsis

Born in Alabama on December 22, 1883, Arthur Mitchell studied at the Tuskegee Institute and practiced law before becoming the first African American Democrat elected to the House of Representatives in 1934. An outspoken liberal, he introduced early civil rights and anti-lynching bills. In 1941, he sued a train company for forcing him into a segregated car (Mitchell vs. United States et al, 1941).

Profile

US representative. Born December 22, 1883 near Lafayette, Alabama. Mitchell grew up on a farm and went to Tuskegee Institute in 1897 to work as an office boy for Booker T Washington. He taught in rural schools in Georgia and Alabama and then founded and served 10 years as president of the Armstrong Agricultural School in West Butler, AL. He studied law, was admitted to the bar (1927), and began practicing in Washington, DC, before moving to Chicago (1929) where he engaged in the real-estate business while practicing law.

Like most African-Americans up to that time, he had entered political life as a Republican, but with President Roosevelt's New Deal he switched to the Democratic Party. In 1934 he defeated the venerable Republican African-American Oscar De Priest, to become the first Democratic African-American in the US House of Representatives (Illinois, 1935??43). An outspoken liberal, he denounced the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and nominated black youths to the US military academies.

After Mitchell had been forced out of a Pullman car in Arkansas, he sued for the right of African-Americans to receive the same accommodations as whites in interstate transportation, and argued his case before the US Supreme Court (Mitchell vs. United States et al, 1941), though it was 1955 before the practice was changed. He continued to fight for the rights of African-Americans, and in 1942 proposed to outlaw all poll taxes on the grounds that if blacks could fight for the USA they were entitled to vote. On leaving the House he settled in Petersburg, VA and remained active as a lecturer and with such organizations as the Southern Regional Council.

Mitchell died on May 9, 1968.