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James Milton Turner
James Milton Turner
Assistant superintendent of Missouri schools
	In office; After Civil War – pre-1871
United States Minister to Liberia
	In office; March 1, 1871 – May 7, 1878
President	Ulysses S. Grant; Rutherford B. Hayes
Preceded by	James W. Mason
Succeeded by	John H. Smythe
Personal details
Born	c. 1840; St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Died	Nov 1, 1915 (75 years old); Ardmore, Oklahoma, U.S.
Political party	Republican (Radical Republicans) Democratic
Alma mater	Oberlin College; John Berry Meachum's floating Freedom School
Military service
Branch/service	U.S. Army (Union Army)

James Milton Turner (c. 1840 – November 1, 1915) was an American political leader, activist, educator, and diplomat during the Reconstruction era. Appointed consul general to Liberia in 1871, he was the first African-American to serve in the U.S. diplomatic corps.

Early life

Turner was born into slavery in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child, he was sold on the steps of the St. Louis US Courthouse for $50 (equivalent to $1,800 in 2024).^[1] His enslaved father, John Turner, was a "horse doctor". Allowed to keep some of his earnings, he eventually purchased freedom for himself and his family.

At fourteen, James Turner attended Oberlin College in Ohio for one term; following his father's death in 1855, Turner had to return to St. Louis to care for his family. Turner attended John Berry Meachum's Floating Freedom School on a steamboat on the Mississippi River, which Meachum had set up to evade the 1847 Missouri law against education of blacks.

Career

When the American Civil War broke out, Turner enlisted in the Union Army and served as body servant for Col. Madison Miller. He was wounded, resulting in a permanent limp.

After the war, Miller's brother-in-law, Missouri Governor Thomas Fletcher, appointed him as assistant superintendent of schools. He had funding from a private religious group, the American Missionary Association based in New England, as well as the War Department's Freedmen's Bureau. He was responsible for setting up 32 schools for black Missourians. He helped establish the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, the first institution of higher education for African Americans in the state. The institute's name was later changed to Lincoln University.^[2]

As a politician, Turner, an outspoken member of the Radical Republicans and a leader of the Missouri Equal Rights League, was held in high regard for his oratorical skills.^[3] In 1868 he was installed as the principal of Lincoln School, the first school for blacks in Kansas City, Missouri. He was succeeded by J. Dallas Bowser.^[4]

In 1871, Turner was appointed as consul general to Liberia by Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. He relocated to Monrovia and held that post until 1878. During this time he was involved in settling the Grebo war.^[5]

When he returned to St. Louis, Turner played an important role in helping to resettle black refugees from former Confederate states in the South. He also worked to organize freedmen and people of color free before the Civil War as a political force; they overwhelmingly joined the Republican Party, considered the party of Abraham Lincoln. Turner also took part in relief efforts for African Americans who had left the South for Kansas as part of the Exoduster Movement of 1879. Many of these migrants settled in St. Louis.^[6]

In 1881, Turner worked with Hannibal Carter to organize the Freedmen's Oklahoma Immigration Association to promote black homesteading in Oklahoma. As chairman of the Negro National Republican Committee, he proposed nominating US Senator Blanche Bruce, another African American, as the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket in 1880.^[6]

Turner worked during the last two decades of his life in fighting for the rights of Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw freedmen in the Indian Territory. After the war, the US government had made new treaties with these tribes, which had supported the Confederacy. They required the tribes to offer full citizenship to those freedmen who chose to stay in tribal territory, as the US had done for freedmen in the United States.^[7] He successfully lobbied Congress for the nearly 4,000 Cherokee Freedmen to receive $75,000 (US$ 2,543,300 in 2024) from funds that the U.S. government had paid the tribe in 1888 for their land. The Cherokee originally did not want to divide the money for communal lands to include the freedmen.

Death and legacy

In late 1915 Turner was in Ardmore, Oklahoma, representing the freedmen in a legal dispute. When a nearby railroad car exploded, the debris cut his left hand. Blood poisoning developed in the wound, and Turner died November 1, 1915, in Ardmore.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]

The Turner School in the Meacham Park area of Kirkwood, Missouri, was named for Turner. The school opened in 1924 and was renamed after Turner in 1932; it was closed during the 1975–1976 school year^[12] in response to a federally mandated directive to address the racial isolation that its African American students were experiencing in the Kirkwood School District.^[13]