Born: March 9, 1871, Florence, AL

Education: Normal school, Salina, KN, graduated 1889

Died: May 12, 1951, Chicago, IL

The son of ex-slaves, DePriest became a businessman and respected Republican politician. First elected a Cook County commissioner, he won election as Chicago's first black alderman in 1915. His victory was attributable to the party's Second Ward machine and loyalty of African American women, who comprised 25 percent of black voters. They obtained suffrage by the State Woman Suffrage Amendment of 1913. Leading clubwoman Frances Barrier Williams (1855–1944) said that DePriest's triumph would provide “an effective weapon with which to combat prejudice and discrimination of all kinds” (Hendricks, 1998, p. 96).

DePriest made her assertion his mission and pursued it in Washington. Elected to the US House in 1928, the first African American congressman since 1901, he authored several key but failing offender protection and antilynching bills. The latter included fines and imprisonment for officials who allowed mobs to harm prisoners and, in cases of lynching, state-financed survivor compensations. He drafted a bill prohibiting racial discrimination in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a major source of black jobs during the Depression. Moreover, he increased Howard University's budget appropriations and nominated black cadets to US military academies. In spite of death threats, he also spoke to southern black audiences on the right to vote.