James D. Lynch

American politician

James D. Lynch (1839 – December 18, 1872) was a missionary, public official, and state legislator in the United States. He was the first African American Secretary of State of Mississippi, and a minister.

Lynch was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His mother was a slave and his father was a white merchant and minister. Lynch obtained his early education at an elementary school, instructed by Reverend Daniel Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Their discussion directly led to Sherman's Special Field Orders No. 15, which included the famous Forty acres and a mule land allotment. Following the Civil War, Lynch later joined other missionaries in South Carolina. Within a year of Lynch's arrival, the church increased by approximately six thousand African Americans, and twenty meeting houses were created.</blockquote>

In 1869, Lynch was elected Secretary of State, defeating his convention rival Dr. Thomas W. Stringer by a vote of 158 to 36. As a result, Lynch became the first African American state official in Mississippi. While Secretary of State, Lynch had to pay for some of the expenses out of his own pocket because people previously believed that it did not take much to run an administrative department. Lynch worked to improve the public school system throughout the state and acquired support from whites. In 1871, Lynch was re elected. In 1872, he served as a delegate to the National Republican Convention. While in his second term, Lynch and his African American supporters started to become disillusioned with the Reconstruction process, along with the increasing tension amongst the black and European American Republicans.

Also in 1872, Lynch was troubled with Bright's disease of the kidney, accompanied by the recurrence of pneumonia. On December 18, 1872, he died at the age of thirty four. Lynch received a state funeral, in which the governor of Mississippi, R. C. Powers, was one of the pallbearers. Lynch was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson, Mississippi, where city and state officials, three black fire brigades, a black charitable order, Friendly Brothers, and a large concourse of African Americans followed the procession to the grave. Republicans, who still controlled the state legislature, passed a bill appropriating a thousand dollars for the erection of a monument.