Jacob P. “Jake” Hutchings, From Slavery to the State House

On December 22, 1869, after two years as a political organizer, Jacob P. “Jake” Hutchings (c. March 1831-June 1909) was sworn in as the first Black and first Republican member of the Georgia legislature. He is the only Black state legislator ever elected in the history of Jones County. He actively fought to enable Black men access to the ballot, even though White county officials made every effort to stop them.

The August 18, 1868 Federal Union reprinted a Macon Telegraph article that accused Hutchings (misnamed “Jake Hutchinson”) of organizing drills and secret meetings of 125 armed Black male “agitators.” It complained of Black farm laborers leading “entirely idle lives” and “getting slack about their work.” The Jones County News (Jan. 30, 1908-Nov. 25, 1909) had earlier published an article by Hutchings that suggested the source of such unfounded anxieties. In spite of threats from the Ku Klux Klan, he said, Black men would not be deterred in their attempts to vote. Hutchings reported that election officials in Clinton outright refused to open the polls to the hundreds of Black men he had organized to vote. Those who could spare the time and expense had to travel instead to Macon to cast their ballots.

Hutchings’s story demonstrates accomplishment and determination to succeed in spite of dehumanizing voter suppression policies and bigoted attitudes towards African Americans. His determination to exercise his 15th Amendment right and to ensure access to the ballot by other Black men (the 19th Amendment of 1920 granted women the right to vote) anticipate the mid twenty-first century tensions regarding restrictive voting policies that adversely have affected Black and people of color communities.

Sources

 “Affairs in Jones.” Federal Union (Milledgeville, GA), August 18, 1868, p. 3.  Georgia Historic Newspapers.

Daily Intelligencer (Atlanta, GA), January 28, 1870, p. 60.  Georgia Historic Newspapers.

Foner, Eric.  Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996, p. 112.

Hutchings, J. P. [Jake]. Letter. Samuel Hardeman Griswold, Jones County News (Gray, GA), April 28, 1868.   

Williams, Carolyn White.  History of Jones County, Georgia for One Hundred Years, Specifically 1807- 1907.  Macon: J.W. Burke Co., 1957, pp. 19, 186.