This Day in Republican History 11/23/05

November 23, 1860 Birth into slavery of Republican Edward Johnson, historian and first African-American New York state legislator (1917-18); helped outlaw racial discrimination in public accommodations Edward Austin Johnson (1860-1944) was a prominent African American politician and business leader. Born to slave parents near Raleigh, North Carolina in the last years of slavery, Johnson would study at Atlanta University and then at Shaw in Raleigh where he became dean of the Law School. He was a co-founder of a major African American insurance company, and he served as president of a black-owned cotton mill. He would eventually move to New York City and become the first African American to serve in the New York State Legislature. A School History of the Negro Race in America (1890) was the first of Johnson's three books.