Oklahoma Journeys

Week of February 7, 2009

A.C. Hamlin Born in February, 1881

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A new recruit in the struggle for justice this week on Oklahoma Journeys. Despite strong efforts to do so, the early state legislatures of Oklahoma could not completely silence the voice of the state’s black population. A.C. Hamlin was one such voice, and his story is the focus of this week’s Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma History Center.

From the Oklahoma History Center, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865 and for several decades afterwards freed slaves migrated out of the Deep South toward places north and west. Known as the “exodusters,” a large percentage of this migrating population moved initially towards Kansas and then Oklahoma. With the beginning of the great land openings in Oklahoma in the late 1880s and early 1890s, many of these exodusters began a “new exodus,” hoping for a new start in the new territory. Among the hundreds of African American families entering Oklahoma at the time was the Hamlin family originally of Tennessee. The Hamlins settled first in Kansas and then with the opening of Oklahoma Territory moved to a claim near Guthrie in Logan County. As a child in Guthrie Albert Comstock, or A.C., Hamlin experienced the early death of his father and accepted the responsibility of helping hold the family together. Following the advice of his mother Hamlin stayed in school receiving the education that he began in Kansas. Hamlin, soon after graduation, married Katie Weaver and began a family of his own.

A.C. Hamlin, as a young adult, was active in local politics and church business, and it was these connections that helped him make history in 1908. In 1908 Albert Comstock Hamlin became the first African American elected to the state legislature. Remarkably enough, at the same time of his election, white Oklahoma politicians were working hard to remove voting rights and political power from the African American community. Despite the obvious prejudice against him, Hamlin not only served his term in Congress but also introduced a number of important bills and obtained passage, among other things, of the bill creating the state school for deaf, blind, and orphaned colored children at Taft. Hamlin also experienced moderate success in his fight for stricter observance of the Sabbath and greater equality of services on the state’s segregated rail system. By 1910 the overwhelmingly white legislature had created laws prohibiting black voting, and Hamlin lost his bid for reelection. As if being the first at anything wasn’t enough, A.C. Hamlin endured being an African American legislator in the very hostile prejudiced environment that was early day politics in Oklahoma.

It was in this February of 1881 that the Hamlin family celebrated the arrival of young Albert Comstock into the world. Little did they know then the progress he would make or the paths to equality that he would struggle to open. You can learn more about the African American story by visiting our exhibit “Realizing the Dream” at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City on NE 23rd Street, just east of the state capitol. Oklahoma Journeys is produced by the Oklahoma History Center, dedicated to the collection, preservation and sharing of our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.