Samuel A. McElwee

Who was Samuel A. McElwee?

Samuel McElwee was born a slave in 1857 in Madison County, Tennessee. His parents were Robert and Georgianna McElwee. He was a lawyer and the most influential Republic party leader in Haywood County, Tennessee during Reconstruction. He served in Tennessee General Assembly from 1883 to 1888. He was the first African American to serve three terms in legislature and also the first one to be nominated as the Speaker of the House.

After emancipation, his family moved to a farm in Haywood County, Tennessee in 1866. He attended Freedmen’s Bureau Schools where he was taught by his former slave master’s children. Therefore, he moved quickly through school. In 1875, he attended Oberlin College in Ohio for a year. Then he returned to south and taught at a school for three years. He studied Latin, German, and mathematics with a Vanderbilt student whose recommendation got him a Peabody Scholarship to Fisk University. In 1878, he enrolled at the Fisk University and graduated in 1883. While still a student at the University, he got elected to the General Assembly from Haywood County. He opened up a grocery store in Haywood County and started reading law on his own. While serving in legislature he attended Nashville’s Central Tennessee College’s Law School and obtained a law degree in 1886.