Isaac M. Burgan was born a slave October 6, 1848 in McDowell County, North Carolina near Marion to a slave, Sylva Burgan. Held in slavery until the end of the American Civil War, Burgan first learned

James Matthew Townsend was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and a state legislator from Indiana. A Republican, he served in the legislature in the 1884 session. From 1889 to 1891 he was recorde