Thomas Cardozo | |
---|---|
Mississippi Superintendent of Education | |
Personal details | |
Born | Charleston, South Carolina, U.S. | December 19, 1838
Died | April 12, 1881 Newton, Massachusetts | (aged 42)
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | Laura J. Williams |
Relatives | Francis Lewis Cardozo (brother) Henry Cardozo (brother) Benjamin N. Cardozo (distant relative) |
Profession | politician, educator, journalist, postal worker |
Thomas Whitmarsh Cardozo (December 19, 1838[1] – April 12, 1881[2]) was an educator, journalist, and public official during the Reconstruction Era in the United States.[3][1] He served as Superintendent of Education in Mississippi and is the only African American to have ever held the position.[1]
Early life
Cardozo was born free in Charleston, South Carolina in 1838. His father was Isaac Nunez Cardozo, who was part of a well-known Jewish family and worked in the Charleston Customhouse. Thomas's mother was Lydia Williams who was of mixed ancestry including African American. He had two older sisters, Lydia and Eslander, and two older brothers, Henry Cardozo and Francis Lewis Cardozo.[2][1] In 1857, two years after his father's death, Thomas and his mother moved to New York where he continued his education.[1]
Career in education
Shortly after the beginning of the American Civil War, he began teaching in New York and married a teacher, Laura J. Williams. She was from a family in Brooklyn and had one white parent and one black.
In 1865, Thomas Cardozo and his wife briefly moved from Flushing, New York to Charleston, South Carolina. Thomas Cardozo was the first principal of Saxton School in Charleston. After a scandal from Thomas's time in New York emerged, his brother Francis Cardozo took over leadership of the school in 1866. Thomas Cardozo and his wife moved back to New York after a while before returning to the South in 1869[1] and opening a school in Elizabeth City, North Carolina the following year.[4]
In 1871, the Cardozos moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi where he served as State Superintendent of Education from 1874 to 1876. He proposed uniform textbooks for Mississippi schools. Cardozo Middle School in Jackson, Mississippi is named for him.[5]
Career in politics
In 1871, the Cardozos moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi where his wife had family and where he could pursue his political aspirations. Cardozo joined the Republican Party and was elected circuit court clerk of Warren County in 1872. He wrote accounts of his experiences in Mississippi including descriptions of his fellow Republican politicians for the New National Era under the pseudonym "Civis". He was a delegate to the 1873 National Civil Rights Convention in Washington, D.C.[1]
In 1873, Thomas Cardozo was elected State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi.[6] In November 1874 he was indicted for embezzling. The jury could not reach a verdict, but political attacks on him by conservative white Democrats continued.[1]
In 1875 the occupying Northern army began to withdraw from the South. Conservative white Democrats had regained control of the state legislature by a program of violence and intimidation against Republican black voters. The legislators brought impeachment charges against Thomas Cardozo. In 1876 he agreed to resign and left the state, moving to Massachusetts. He is considered to have "capitalized on party weaknesses and eventually brought opprobrium on himself and his party."[1]
He was a postal worker in Newton, Massachusetts until his death in 1881. He was forty-two.[1]
The Library of Congress has a photo of him.[7]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Brock, Euline W. (1981). "Thomas W. Cardozo: Fallible Black Reconstruction Leader" (PDF). The Journal of Southern History. 47 (2): 183–206.
- ^ a b Sage, Robert (November 8, 2016). "Thomas W. Cardozo". Find a Grave. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
- ^ Richter, William L. (December 1, 2011). "Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction". Scarecrow Press – via Google Books.
- ^ "Thomas W. Cardozo Unsung Schoolmaster and Politician" (PDF). ecsu.edu. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
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: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Cardozo Middle School". Jackson Public Schools. August 17, 2016.
- ^ W.E.B. Du Bois (1935). "XI. The Black Proletariat in Mississippi and Louisiana". Black Reconstruction in America (1860-1880). Meridian. p. 445.
- ^ "Thomas W. Cardozo, 1838-1881". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.