Conway Barbour

Conway Barbour (c. 1818–1876) was held as a slave, worked as a ship steward, became a businessman, and lawyer.^[1] He served as a state legislator in Arkansas and was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1871. Professor Victoria L. Harrison wrote about him in the 2018 book Fight Like a Tiger: Conway Barbour and the Challenges of the Black Middle Class in Nineteenth-Century America published by Southern Illinois University Press.^[2]

A Republican, he represented Lafayette County, Arkansas in the Arkansas House.^[3]

He died in Lake Village, Arkansas.^[4]

He and two other African Americans who represented Lafayette County, Marshall M. Murray and Monroe Hawkins, are commemorated by a historical marker in Stamps, Arkansas.^[5]

See also

• African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900