George Robison Black

George Robison Black was an American slave owner, politician and lawyer. His wife, Nellie [Peters Black], became a prominent social activist.

Biography

Black was born at his family's slave plantation near Jacksonboro, Georgia, as the son of Edward Junius Black and Augusta George Anna Kirkland Black. He attended the University of Georgia in Athens and the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1857 and began practice in Savannah, Georgia.
During the American Civil War, Black served in the Confederate States Army as a first lieutenant in the Phoenix Riflemen and later as a lieutenant colonel of the Sixty-third Georgia Regiment.
After the war, Black participated in the Georgia constitutional convention in 1865 and was a delegate to the 1872 Democratic National Convention. He later served as state Senator from 1875 to 1877 and was the vice president of the Georgia State Agricultural Society. Black was elected to the United States [House of Representatives] in 1880 as a Democrat in the 47th [United States Congress|47th Congress]; however, he lost his reelection campaign in 1882. He died in Sylvania, Georgia, in 1886 and was buried in Sylvania Cemetery.