Booknotes: A Brief Moment in the Sun

New Arrival:
• A Brief Moment in the Sun: Francis Cardozo and Reconstruction in South Carolina by Neil Kinghan (LSU Press, 2023).

Neil Kinghan's A Brief Moment in the Sun "is the first scholarly biography of Francis Lewis Cardozo, one of the most talented and influential African Americans to hold elected office in the South between Reconstruction and the civil rights era." Additionally, Kinghan's study "is the first complete historical analysis of Francis Cardozo and his contribution to Reconstruction and African American history. It draws on original research on Cardozo’s early life and education in Scotland and England and pulls together for the first time the extant sources on his experiences in South Carolina and Washington, DC."

"Born to a formerly enslaved African American mother and white Jewish father in antebellum South Carolina," Cardozo (1836-1903) left the country in 1858 to seek higher education abroad. Spending most of the Civil War years in Great Britain studying religion at several institutions, he returned to the United States in 1864, where he settled in Connecticut and established himself as a pastor. Cardozo returned to South Carolina in 1865. As an American Missionary Association agent, he administered an AMA school for African Americans.

As a delegate to the South Carolina constitutional convention, Cardozo formally entered politics in 1868. That same year he was elected Secretary of State, and in 1872 state treasurer. Though re-elected twice and possessing a reputation of honesty in office, Cardozo's Republican political career ended after the U.S. government terminated Reconstruction and the Democratic Party returned to power in the state. Prosecuted for fraud and conspiracy in 1877 (Kinghan describes the trial as "rigged," and others concur), Cardozo was imprisoned for seven months before being pardoned by Governor William Simpson in 1879. From there, Cardozo "moved to Washington DC, where he led an even more successful school for African American children."

In his introduction, the author outlines the three-fold goals of this project. In addition to restoring Cardozo "to his rightful place as a central figure in the history of Reconstruction," Kinghan's wishes to "attract wider public attention to [Cardozo's] significance as an exemplary African American leader in politics and education in South Carolina and in Washington, DC." Finally, through relating Cardozo's life story, the author hopes to "rewrite the history of Reconstruction from the perspective of a highly able and honorable African American political leader whose voice should be heard" (pg. 6).