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| Photo of Mr. William H. Grey, courtesy of the Persistence of the Spirit Collection at the Arkansas State Archives. |
At the end of the Civil War, the nation was confronted with the
question of how to readmit Southern states into the Union. This long process of
answering that question and reintegrating the South was called Reconstruction.
Reconstruction pitted those who wished the South to be readmitted
with little change to their pre-war political structure against those who hoped
the process would bring lasting change. In Arkansas, those differing forces
came to a head in 1868.
Arkansas began Reconstruction in 1863, after the capture of Little
Rock by Union forces. In 1864, Arkansans met in a convention to ratify a new
constitution. Other than the abolishment of slavery, the new constitution made
few changes from the state’s pre-war constitution. One of the most striking
parts of the new constitution was it extended voting rights only to white men, which
left out the possibility of African American voting
rights.
The U.S. Congress took control of Reconstruction in 1867, after
the impeachment of U.S. President Andrew Johnson, and stringently demanded more
political change in the South. Lawmakers, led by Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, required Southern states to
write new state constitutions extending voting rights to African Americans. Seventy
delegates met in Little Rock to write a new constitution in January 1868. Among
those delegates was William H. Grey of Helena, Arkansas.
Grey was born to free African American parents in 1829 in
Washington, D.C. In the 1850s, he worked as a servant in the house of Virginia Gov.
Henry A. Wise. Wise often took Grey to the Capitol, where Grey undoubtedly
learned the art of politics.
After Gen. Sterling Price captured Little Rock in 1863, Grey moved
to Helena where he established a farm, practiced law and became a minister in a
Helena church. Grey became involved in the Republican Party and quickly became
one of its leaders.
In 1867, Grey became a delegate to Arkansas’s constitutional
convention and was the leading African American voice in the convention. Among
the eight African American delegates at the convention, six had been born
slaves, which made their presence in the convention all the more poignant.
On the other side of the political aisle was a group of men, many
of whom were Confederate veterans who were opposed to a number of the
Republican-backed laws. They were led by Jesse N. Cypert, a Confederate veteran
from White County who had been a delegate to the 1864 Constitutional Convention
and the Secession Convention in 1861.
As the convention progressed through the winter of 1868, it became
clear that one of the major issues was voting rights. Grey’s camp was intent on
excluding Arkansas’s former Confederate government officers and politicians
from the voting rolls, while including African Americans on those rolls. Cypert’s
faction called for voting rights to be extended to white men only.
Days after the opening of the convention, Cypert demanded the
formal acceptance of the already established 1864 Constitution. To do
otherwise, he asserted, would be to abolish “white man’s government of our
fathers, and an erection of an Africanized government in its stead.” Cypert proposed an ordinance to accept the
1864 Constitution and end the convention.
Grey, the de facto leader of African American delegates in the
convention, denounced Cypert’s ordinance. Grey began his address by expressing
shock that Cypert would offer such an ordinance. “Now, sir, who having stood by
the government and the old flag in times of trouble,” he continued, “for this
and other considerations we are here not to ask charity at the hands of the
honorable body, but to receive, at the hands of the people of Arkansas in
convention assembled, the proportionment of our rights… I am here, sir, to see
those rights of citizenship engrafted in the organic law of this state.”
Grey argued equal rights were owed to African Americans. “We are
here, sir, to receive the amount due us as citizens of the United States and
the State of Arkansas, and we are content,” Grey said. His speech, which was successful, was
possibly the first time an African American voice was heard in Arkansas
politics.
On Jan. 17, the convention rejected Cypert’s ordinance by a vote
of 53 to 10. Following the rejection of Cypert’s ordinance, the convention
passed a new constitution. The Constitution of 1868 was a revolutionary
document that allowed African American men the right to vote.
After the convention, Grey remained in public life, serving as
Commissioner of Immigration and State Lands and later as an assistant U.S. assessor.
He died in Helena in 1888, leaving a lasting mark on Arkansas politics with his
impassioned speech on behalf of African American voting rights.
For more information about Arkansas history, visit the Arkansas
State Archives at 1 Capitol Mall, Suite 215, or call 501-682-6900. Information
is also available at http://archives.arkansas.gov/.
