Josiah Thomas Walls (ca. 1870)

Josiah Thomas Walls (ca. 1870)

AP African American Studies Guide

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Topic 3.1

The Brady National Gallery, Josiah Thomas Walls, ca. 1870

Josiah Thomas Walls, a mustachioed Black man, in three-quarter profile wearing a dark jacket and vest and white shirt and bow tie.

A photograph of Josiah Thomas Walls from the Brady National Gallery, Hoyt, Washington, DC, ca. 1870 (Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

Josiah Thomas Walls was born in Virginia and served in the Florida state senate and as a delegate to the state’s Reconstruction-era constitutional convention in 1868. In 1870, Walls became the first Black Floridian elected to serve in the US House of Representatives; his election was contested and overturned, but he was re-elected in 1872.