George W. Murray

George Washington Murray (* September 22, 1853 in Rembert, Sumter County, South Carolina, † April 21, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois ) was an American politician. Between 1893 and 1897 he represented a break with the state of South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

The African American George Murray was still born in 1853 as a slave. After the end of the civil war and the associated abolition of slavery, he attended the common schools. Then he studied at the University of South Carolina in South Carolina. For 15 years, Murray taught as a teacher in Sumter County.

Politically, he was a member of the Republican Party, whose chairman he was in Sumter County. Murray was also a delegate to several Republican National Conventions. He also gave lectures for the agricultural association of African-American farmers. Between 1890 and 1892 Murray was a customs inspector at the port of Charleston. In 1892, he was then in the seventh constituency of South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of William Elliott on March 4, 1893. By March 3, 1895 Murray completed a regular term in Congress. In the elections of 1894 he ran unsuccessfully in the first district against Elliott. However, he appealed against the outcome of the election an opposition. Until the decision in this matter Elliott practiced from the elected to the Congress. On June 4, 1896 Congress decided to Murray's favor, the mandate of Elliot took over that day and the current legislative period ended until 3 March 1897.

After the end of his time in the House of Representatives George Murray went into the real estate business. In 1903 he was indicted for falsifying names on contracts. In 1905 he was sentenced to a prison term as a chain convict forced labor. Murray but escaped punishment by fleeing to Chicago. There he worked again in the real estate industry. He also sold insurance. He was also active in the Republican Party of Illinois and was a friend of the possibly corrupt Chicago Mayor Bill Thompson. In Chicago, Murray also dealt with literary matters. In 1915 he was pardoned in South Carolina by Governor Coleman Blease Livingston. Murray remained in Chicago, where he died in April 1926.