.jpg/1470px-Richard_Coke_-_Brady-Handy_(cropped).jpg)
Recent from talks
Richard Coke
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Richard Coke
Richard Coke (March 18, 1829 – May 14, 1897) was an American lawyer and statesman from Waco, Texas. He was the 15th governor of Texas from 1874 to 1876 and was a US Senator from 1877 to 1895. His governorship is notable for reestablishing local white supremacist rule in Texas, and the disfranchisement of African American voters, following Reconstruction. Richard Coke was revered by many Texas Southern Democrats due to his perceived triumphs over Reconstruction era Federal control in Texas politics. His uncle was US Representative Richard Coke Jr.
Richard Coke was born in 1829 in Williamsburg, Virginia, to John and Eliza (Hankins) Coke. Octavius Coke was his brother. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1848 with a law degree.
In 1850, Coke moved to Texas and opened a law practice in Waco. In 1852, he married Mary Horne of Waco. The couple had four children, but all of them died before age 30.
In 1859, Coke was appointed by governor Hardin R. Runnels to lead a commission tasked with removing the remaining Comanche natives from West Texas and the Texas Hill Country.
Coke was a delegate to the Secession Convention at Austin in 1861. The convention's chief concern was keeping slavery legal. Coke owned slaves himself. He voted that Texas should leave the United States to join the Confederacy.
He joined the Confederate Army as a private. In 1862, he raised a company that became part of the 15th Texas Infantry and served as its captain for the rest of the war. He was wounded in an action known as Bayou Bourbeau on November 3, 1863, near Opelousas, Louisiana. After the war, he returned home to Waco.
In 1865, Coke was appointed a Texas district court judge, and in 1866, he was elected as an associate justice to the Texas Supreme Court. The following year, the military Governor-General Philip Sheridan removed Coke and four other judges as "an impediment to reconstruction", in pursuit of unionist Reconstruction policies. The removal of the five judges became a cause célèbre and made their names famous, synonymous in the public eye with resistance to Union occupation.
Richard Coke leveraged resentment at Union occupation to construct a Democratic electoral coalition that ruled Texas for more than 100 years. Through Ku Klux Klan attacks, intimidation, and public lynching of Black voters and their white allies, Coke's coalition re-established conservative white control of Texas in the 1870s. Disfranchisement of Black Texans was maintained with poll taxes and white primaries. The number of black voters decreased sharply from more than 100,000 in the 1890s to 5,000 in 1906.
Hub AI
Richard Coke AI simulator
(@Richard Coke_simulator)
Richard Coke
Richard Coke (March 18, 1829 – May 14, 1897) was an American lawyer and statesman from Waco, Texas. He was the 15th governor of Texas from 1874 to 1876 and was a US Senator from 1877 to 1895. His governorship is notable for reestablishing local white supremacist rule in Texas, and the disfranchisement of African American voters, following Reconstruction. Richard Coke was revered by many Texas Southern Democrats due to his perceived triumphs over Reconstruction era Federal control in Texas politics. His uncle was US Representative Richard Coke Jr.
Richard Coke was born in 1829 in Williamsburg, Virginia, to John and Eliza (Hankins) Coke. Octavius Coke was his brother. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1848 with a law degree.
In 1850, Coke moved to Texas and opened a law practice in Waco. In 1852, he married Mary Horne of Waco. The couple had four children, but all of them died before age 30.
In 1859, Coke was appointed by governor Hardin R. Runnels to lead a commission tasked with removing the remaining Comanche natives from West Texas and the Texas Hill Country.
Coke was a delegate to the Secession Convention at Austin in 1861. The convention's chief concern was keeping slavery legal. Coke owned slaves himself. He voted that Texas should leave the United States to join the Confederacy.
He joined the Confederate Army as a private. In 1862, he raised a company that became part of the 15th Texas Infantry and served as its captain for the rest of the war. He was wounded in an action known as Bayou Bourbeau on November 3, 1863, near Opelousas, Louisiana. After the war, he returned home to Waco.
In 1865, Coke was appointed a Texas district court judge, and in 1866, he was elected as an associate justice to the Texas Supreme Court. The following year, the military Governor-General Philip Sheridan removed Coke and four other judges as "an impediment to reconstruction", in pursuit of unionist Reconstruction policies. The removal of the five judges became a cause célèbre and made their names famous, synonymous in the public eye with resistance to Union occupation.
Richard Coke leveraged resentment at Union occupation to construct a Democratic electoral coalition that ruled Texas for more than 100 years. Through Ku Klux Klan attacks, intimidation, and public lynching of Black voters and their white allies, Coke's coalition re-established conservative white control of Texas in the 1870s. Disfranchisement of Black Texans was maintained with poll taxes and white primaries. The number of black voters decreased sharply from more than 100,000 in the 1890s to 5,000 in 1906.
Recent media