Hugh A. Carson

Hugh A. Carson. Born enslaved in North Carolina on July 27, 1847. Hugh A. Carson likely came to Alabama after the Civil War. He married Eliza Stewart (1854-1939) in 1873. The couple had six children., Near the end of the Reconstruction era, Carson entered the political arena. Lowndes County Republicans chose him as a delegate to the 1875 constitutional convention. Carson was among only three men of color elected to the convention, none of whom voted in favor of the new, restrictive constitution, which had been conceived by the Democratic majority as a means of upending Reconstruction., The following year, Carson was elected as a Lowndes County state representative. Soon thereafter, Democrats in the legislature initiated proceedings to have him expelled, claiming proof of a North Carolina indictment made him unfit to serve. On January 20, 1879, the legislature adopted a joint resolution expelling Carson. Gov. Rufus W. Cobb signed the resolution the following day ending the term of one of the last African American lawmakers in Alabama for nearly a century. , Carson remained active in Republican Party politics in the Alabama Black Belt. He held an appointed position with the Federal Revenue Commission and was a delegate to the 1900 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Carson died in Montgomery's Hale Infirmary in May 1912.