They were expelled from the Georgia Legislature. Now they’re honored.

“We are doing something miraculous, we are witnessing history,” said Gilliard, who helped spearhead the initiative.

The moment blended solemnity with celebration. More than a dozen sitting lawmakers stood alongside descendants of the expelled legislators for a “say their names” tribute — reciting aloud the men whose brief tenure brought both a breakthrough and a backlash during Reconstruction.

For many under the Gold Dome, it was also a reminder of a chapter that is foundational to Georgia’s political history that still somehow remains little known even among those who work in the building where it unfolded.

“It’s impossible for me not to sense the weight of history here,” said Emory University interim President Leah Ward Sears, a trailblazing former Georgia Supreme Court justice who was honored at the event.

In 1868, amid the upheaval of Reconstruction and widespread Ku Klux Klan violence, 33 Black Republican men were elected to the Georgia General Assembly — 30 to the House and three to the Senate.

They represented predominantly Black districts at a time when newly freed slaves, emancipated after the Civil War, were asserting political power for the first time.

Among them was Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, a prominent African Methodist Episcopal minister and the first Black chaplain in the Union Army.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

But within months of taking office, white Democrats — then in the minority — joined with enough white Republicans to expel the Black lawmakers, claiming the state constitution did not explicitly grant Black men the right to hold office.

On Sept. 3, 1868, Turner rose in the House chamber. He did not plead for permission to serve. Instead, he challenged the state’s moral authority to oust him from office.

“Am I a man?” Turner asked lawmakers. “If I am such, I claim the rights of a man.”

His speech condemned a betrayal of democratic principles and left with a warning that stripping duly elected legislators of their seats would stain the state’s future.

A year later, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Black people could hold office in Georgia, and authorities began reinstating dozens of ousted officials. But the progress did not last.

In 1870, so-called “Redeemer” Democrats regained control of the Legislature. Over the following decades, terror, intimidation and legal barriers took their toll on Black political participation. One-quarter of the Original 33 were killed, beaten, threatened or jailed. Several were lynched, said state Sen. Donzella James, one of the organizers.

By 1907, the last remaining Black legislator of that era left office. None would again serve in the state Legislature until Leroy Johnson was elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962.

The group is already memorialized on Capitol grounds by the sculpture “Expelled Because of Color,” installed in 1978. But for much of the last decade, a group of bipartisan lawmakers pushed to authorize a new monument specifically honoring the Original 33. It passed last year.

Gilliard has framed the new law as an effort to preserve a fuller, more honest account of Georgia’s political history. But for him, the fight has also been personal.

A distant ancestor, William Golden of Liberty County, was among the expelled lawmakers. His sister, Pat Gilliard Gunn, said she felt a wave of catharsis during the ceremony.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

“I’m so honored we can say Golden’s name,” she said. “They are the ones who led the way. It’s a wonderful sense of pride.”

The path to Wednesday’s ceremony was not always smooth.

There were delays and political hurdles, reminders that even memorializing this chapter required consistency and persistence. Still, she said, the moment brought an unexpected sense of closure.

“I now feel like they are resting in peace.”