R. S. Taylor

R. S. Taylor was a post Reconstruction era politician in North Carolina who served in the North Carolina Senate from 1885 to 1888 representing Edgecombe County.^[1][2]

R. S. Taylor
Taylor (c. 1887)
Member of the North Carolina Senate
In office 1885–1888
Personal details
Political party	Republican (while serving)

He became a justice of the peace September 1, 1873.^[3]

He was a Democrat and served as the liberal executive committee chairman for Edgecombe in 1882.^[4] However by 1884 when he was listed as a Republican^[5] and was a speaker at republican meetings in Edgecombe.^[6]

Taylor was first elected to the senate in 1885 serving the 5th district for Edgecombe as a republican.^[7] He was one of two black senators in the 1885 session along with George Henry White.^[8] He was described at the time in The Tarborough Southerner as a Jamaican carpetbagger.^[9] He was elected for a second term to serve 1887 and 1888.^[10] In March 1887 he gave a speech on disfranchisement and put forward a bill to address the issue.^[11]

See also

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