Rapier, James T

Rapier, James T(homas)

(born Nov. 13, 1837, Florence, Ala., U.S.—died May 31, 1883, Montgomery, Ala.) U.S. politician. The son of a slave and a wealthy planter, he was educated in Canada and Scotland. After the American Civil War he returned to Alabama, where he became a successful cotton planter and a delegate to the state's first Republican convention. Serving in the U.S. House of Representatives (1873–75) during Reconstruction, he worked for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He was later collector of internal revenue in Alabama's second district, and he remained active as a labour organizer and publisher of the Montgomery Sentinel.