Thursday, October 20, 2011

Black Republican Tapped To Be Oklahoma's First House Speaker

By Tom Baxter
Southern Political Report
October 18, 2011
"Oklahoma Republicans have tapped a southern Oklahoma legislator to become the state’s first African-American House speaker. Rep. T.W. Shannon will become speaker in early 2013 if the GOP, which currently has a 2-1 House majority, retain control after this year’s elections. Shannon, who is also a member of the Chickasaw Nation, previously served as an aide to Republican congressmen J.C. Watts and Tom Cole."

Here's more background info on State Rep. T.W. Shannon: He is Assistant Majority Whip for the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Mr. Shannon has a JD from Oklahoma City University. He is a business consultant by occupation. A sixth-generation Oklahoman, State Rep. Shannon is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, USA's 13th-largest federally recognized Native American tribe.

RELATED    - - -

In case you are unaware, The U.S. House of Representatives had a black Speaker of the House in 1874. If you didn't know this, you can blame your government schools for hiding true black history. See below.

Representative, 1870–1879, Republican from South Carolina

Born into slavery, Joseph Rainey was the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first African American to preside over the House, and the longest-serving African American during the tumultuous Reconstruction period. While Rainey’s representation—like that of the other 21 black Representatives of the era—was symbolic, he also demonstrated the political nuance of a seasoned, substantive Representative, balancing his defense of southern blacks’ civil rights by extending amnesty to the defeated Confederates. “I tell you that the Negro will never rest until he gets his rights,” he said on the House Floor. “We ask [for civil rights] because we know it is proper,” Rainey added, “not because we want to deprive any other class of the rights and immunities they enjoy, but because they are granted to us by the law of the land.”1

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