The students of the Radical University: Hannibal Kershaw

Hannibal Kershaw
From Grinnell College

Hannibal Benjamin Kershaw (b. 1855; d. May 8, 1883)
South Carolina.  Born enslaved. Black.
Occupation: teacher, preacher.

Hannibal B. Kershaw was born in South Carolina to Sarah Kershaw and an unknown father who died when Hannibal was young.  His mother was enslaved, and he grew up in poverty.  By 1870, he and his mother were living in Darlington County with Jos Kershaw, a carpenter.

Hannibal enrolled at the University of South Carolina on October 5, 1874.  He entered in the college preparatory (or sub freshman) class, but the next year he had advanced to the college class and was on the classical studies track.  The university closed before Hannibal completed his degree.

After the closure of the university, Hannibal moved to Grinnell, Iowa and studied at Iowa College (now Grinnell College).  He went to the college to join his former professor Fisk P. Brewer who had moved there after Reconstruction.  While attending the college, Hannibal lived with the Brewer family.  An Iowa College publication said that Kershaw was "an earnest, conscientious student, a fluent society speaker, and a man whom all respected for his high moral and religious character."  Hannibal graduated from Iowa College in 1879, making him the college's first African American graduate.

While in Iowa, Hannibal became involved with the Methodist Episcopal church.  After graduating, he returned to South Carolina and became more active in the church.  In January 1881, he was admitted to trial (a first step to becoming a traveling preacher) in the South Carolina Conference and was appointed as a preacher in Society Hill, South Carolina.  At the time, he had been living in the town and working as a teacher.

While in Society Hill, Hannibal became active in politics.  In 1880, he ran for State Representative of Darlington County on the Union Republican ticket.  On Election Day, he went to the Society Hill polling station early in the morning and cast the first Republican ballot. As a safeguard against election fraud, he remained at the station all day and recorded who cast a ballot.

Events that day demonstrated the need for safeguards.  When the polling station closed, election managers counted more ballots than people who had cast ballots.  They then destroyed ballots until the two counts agreed.  Most of the ballots destroyed were for the Republican candidates, and Republicans alleged that the managers, who were all Democrats, did this as part of a plan to commit election fraud.  This act, they argued, was part of a general pattern of election fraud by Democrats.

Hannibal and the other Republican candidates in the county lost the election.  The Republican candidate for the U. S. House of Representative contested the outcome before Congress, but after conducting an investigation, Congress upheld the result.

Around January 1883, Hannibal moved from Society Hill to the area around Beaufort and Port Royal (in South Carolina). He moved because he was given a church appointment to the region.  He was also ordained as a deacon in the Methodist Church.  Sadly, during this time Hannibal was experiencing health problems. Sources differ as to the nature of the problems. A 2002 article in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education says that Hannibal was suffering from alcoholism. However, a contemporary obituary states that Hannibal suffered an "attack of lung fever." According to the obituary, Hannibal's "constitution" was "never entirely vigorous," and the attack left him "impaired in health." He died of consumption shortly thereafter.

Grinnell College has honored Hannibal Kershaw by naming one of their residence halls, Kershaw Hall, after him.

Sources
1). "The Earliest Black Graduates of the Nation's Highest-Ranked Liberal Arts Colleges." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 38 (2002): 104-09.

2). 1880; Census Place: Society Hill, Darlington, South Carolina; Roll: 1227; Page: 308C

3). 1870; Census Place: Grant, Darlington, South Carolina; Roll: M593_1493; Page: 427A

4). Catalogue of Iowa College, 1877-8.  Herald Job Printing Office, Grinnell, Iowa.  1879

5). Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Spring Conferences of 1882.  Philips & Hunt, New York.  1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884.

6). United States. Congress.  Testimony and Papers in the Contested-Election Case of Samuel Lee vs. John S. Richardson from the First Congressional District of South Carolina.  In Index to the Miscellaneous Documents of the House of Representatives for the First Session of the Forty-Seventh Congress, 1881-82. Vol 6, No. 19.  Government Printing Office. 1882.

7) "Obituary." The News Letter. May 19, 1883. p. 133. Held in the Grinnell College Libraries Special Collections.