Mr. Norris was a successful business man of Memphis, Mr. Keeble was a barber in Nashville.
Mr. Sykes was Internal Revenue Collector in Nashville and came there with high revenue officials from North Carolina. He entered politics and was quite influential and finally died at Nashville.
Keeble was of a family highly respected and of very high standing in Nashville. The men from Memphis and Haywood counties were more highly educated than the others. They were free men of high class and up to the standard of the whites who were sent to the legislature in those days.
Colored Men in Other Positions
At one time the county government of Davidson County was run by three Commissioners; one of these commissioners was a colored man, named Randall Brown of limited education, but large experience and a large amount of good common sense. He was very influential and highly thought of by white and colored people.
Nashville city government during the days of reconstruction had among its membership, perhaps, one-third colored members. These men were not of the same calibre as the colored members of the legislature. They were picked up in the different wards by their friends. They were chosen for their popularity rather than for fitness for the work before them.
Immediately following the reconstruction days, Josiah T. Settle was elected Assistant Attorney General for Shelby county under General Patterson who afterwards served as Governor of the State of Tennessee. Mr. Settle had previously been a member of the Mississippi Legislature.
In Knoxville men have served in the legislature of the city government.
When they changed the form of government in Nashville, there was a colored man a member of the Board of Aldermen. Two colored men were elected to the council. As a result, two fire companies were given to colored men. Mr. Charles Gowdey and Mr. J.C. Napier were the colored members of the council. The first two brick school houses were erected for colored children during their term. They were the Pearl High School and the Meigs School. At that time the people of Nashville, the Democrats especially, showed a very liberal spirit to the colored people and divided the positions with them. Shorty after this with a more liberal spirit, they erected the third brick school house in the city of Nashville, The Napier School.
After things went out of the hands of the Republicans in Tennessee, Capt. Sumner went down into Mississippi, entered politics and was elected Sheriff of Holmes county. He became quite wealthy. His family was of high standing. Owned property in Nashville and the descendants still own it.