Rebecca Latimer Felton Was The Last Senator To Own Slaves

Rebecca Felton was elected to the Georgia Senate when she was 87-years-old and served for just one day. Felton was also the last U.S. Senator to own any slaves. This horrible woman was a white supremacist and slave owner who fought for the right to lynch black people.

At one point, she attempted to claim that the more money the U.S. spent on education, the more crime black people committed. She also wanted to create an exhibition for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition that would focus on “illustrating the slave period,” with a cabin and “real colored folks making mats, shuck collars, and baskets—a woman to spin and card cotton—and another to play banjo and show the actual life of [the] slave—not the Uncle Tom sort.” Thankfully she was forced to live through the passing of the 13th Amendment.