Henry Mayson (Hinds County)
State House: 1870-1873
Born: c. 1835 in Mississippi
Worked as a barber before he entered politics after emancipation. Established a newspaper called The Colored Citizen in 1867. In the newspaper’s prospectus, published in the Clarion-Ledger on May 8, 1867, Mayson said, “I will advocate freely and fearlessly their [freedmen] civil and political equality.”
Delegate to the 1868 state constitutional convention. Appointed in 1870 to head the Hinds County board of school directors. Corresponding secretary for the Jackson Baptist Association. Appointed to the Lawrence County board of registration in 1879 and an election commissioner in 1883.
Listed on the 1870 census in Hinds County and on the 1880, 1900, and 1910 census in Lawrence County.
“A native of Mississippi, Mayson (whose name was also spelled Mason) was secretary of the 1865 black convention at Vicksburg. He was active in black meetings in the city, in organizing a ‘school committee,’ and in attempting to obtain land for freedmen.“
(Eric Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders during Reconstruction, 1993)
“The first successful black newspaper in Mississippi began in 1867, when Henry Mayson of Vicksburg established the Colored Citizen… No known copy of Mason’s paper survives.”
(Julius E. Thompson, The Black Press in Mississippi, 1865-1985, 1993)
Links:
Mississippi State Convention of Colored Men, 1865
