The First Black Democrat Elected to U.S. Congress, Arthur W. Mitchell, Was the 6th International President of Phi Beta Sigma

Did you know that the first African American elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.? His name was Arthur W. Mitchell, and he broke a political barrier that reshaped Black representation in America.

Arthur Wergs Mitchell was born on December 22, 1883, near Lafayette, Alabama, to parents who had been enslaved. As a boy he walked miles to work as an office assistant for Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute, where he began his own education before continuing his studies at Columbia University and Harvard University. He went on to found and lead the Armstrong Agricultural School in Alabama and was admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C., in 1927. Mitchell was also a devoted leader within Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. According to Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., he served as the fraternity’s 6th International President from 1926 to 1934, the same year he was elected to Congress. Phi Beta Sigma was founded in 1914 at Howard University.

After moving to Chicago, Mitchell entered politics and made history. In 1934, he defeated the Republican incumbent Oscar De Priest to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first African American ever elected to Congress as a Democrat. He served four terms and became a committed supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, advocating for Black workers and civil rights.

Mitchell’s most enduring mark on history came in the courts. As Britannica documents, after he was forced out of a first-class Pullman car while traveling through Arkansas in 1937, he sued the railroad. In the 1941 case Mitchell v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in his favor, holding that Black passengers were entitled to the same accommodations as white passengers, a landmark decision against discrimination in interstate travel.

Arthur W. Mitchell died on May 9, 1968, in Petersburg, Virginia. From a farm in Alabama to the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court, Phi Beta Sigma’s Arthur W. Mitchell opened doors that changed the course of American politics.