Monday, February 16, 2026
Eric Williams
In celebration of Black history month, the Penn Club of Chicago presents author John Knapp, Penn Masters Graduate of 1973, to discuss his biography of Arthur Mitchell, the first African American elected to the US Congress as a Democrat (representing Chicago’s First Congressional District from 1935 to 1943).
About the book:
The Title of the book “A Carpetbagger in Reverse" derives from the fact that Mitchell, a Black born in Alabama, moved to Chicago for the express purpose of being elected to Congress from the city's First Congressional District, the only district in the country where a Black was a viable candidate. He had first observed Chicago politics in 1928 when he had been sent there by the Republican National Committee to assure that the Black vote went for Oscar DePriest. While there he realized that Chicago elections were very much like those in Alabama, controlled by a few bosses who "counted the votes." He then changed party affiliations and moved to Chicago where he made a deal with the Kelly-Nash machine: he would supply the patronage that the machine needed and vote as they directed. In return, he retained the freedom to assume the role he really wanted: to be the voice of the disenfranchised southern Black. With this deal in place, he opposed DePriest in the 1934 election, the first time two Blacks were major party candidates in a Congressional race. He was "elected" to Congress and served four terms until replaced by William L. Dawson (1934-1942).
During his time in Washington his relationship to Chicago was tenuous at best: he didn't like the city, spent little time there, and was unpopular (to put it mildly) with the Black political leadership. But he was a pioneering figure in the Civil Rights movement as an advocate for anti-lynching legislation, the origins of the EEOC, a key player in the swing of the Black vote from Democrats to Republicans in 1936, civil service reform, support for Hugo Black's nomination to the Supreme Court, the origins of Black History Week and the Tuskegee airmen. He also played a decisive role as the first Black to argue successfully before the Supreme Court in Mitchell v. US, a case that began the unwinding of Jim Crow transportation in the South. He did this by cleverly shifting the emphasis drived from Plessy v. Ferguson from an attack on "separate" to an attack on "equal," a strategy that was followed in Brown v. School Board and the Montgomery bus boycott.
All of this is detailed in “Carpetbagger", but so too are the inner workings of Chicago politics: how the Kelly-Nash machine operated on a precinct by precinct analysis, Black churches, and the role of the Defender. This is a most fertile research area for interested Chicagoans: 73 boxes of largely unexploited papers housed at the Chicago History Museum. That institute is also home to the Claude Barnett papers a huge, virtually untapped resource for Black history compiled by the editor of the Associated Negro Press.
About the author:
Dr. John M. Knapp (GR73) received a B.A. with honors in history from Wesleyan University in 1966 and was the co-recipient of the Dutcher Prize for highest excellence in the history department. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 under the auspices of an NDEA Title IV grant. He then spent his career in indepentdent education largely as Head of the Upper School or Headmaster: St. Mary’s Hall/Doane Academy, The Gunnery (now Mr. Gunn’s School), University School of Milwaukee, Miami Country Day School, The Laboratory School of University of Chicago, Buckingham, Brown & Nichols (1973-2010).
