The Benjamin's Last Family Portrait

The following paragraph comes from The Freeman Newspaper (Dec. 22, 1900): "Last Picture of the Benjamin Family" --- R.C.O. Benjamin was assassinated October 2, 1900. This picture represents his family group taken during the visit of Mrs. Benjamin's father, W.S. Robinson, of Alabama. September 19, 1900 twelve days before the tragedy. The ages in years of the Benjamins are: Robert Charles O'Hara, 45; Lulu Maria 27; Robinson Charles O'Hara (called Robin, bearing his father's full initials), 4; Lillian Allen, 8 months. The children's grandfather, aged 53 years, is on the left; their father at the right. Mr. Benjamin was one of the most remarkable Negroes that ever lived --- Editor, Lawyer, Preacher, Teacher, Author, Poet, Orator, Humorist, Lecturer, Politician, Traveler, Thirty-Third Degree Mason and member of all the leading Secret and Benevolent Societies. Duplicate photographs will be sold at 25 cents each for the benefit of the Orphan Fund. Address The Standard, Lexington, Kentucky, a newspaper edited by R.C.O. Benjamin until the night of his martyrdom, and now published by his widow.

The following biography comes from American National Biography Online, "Robert Charles O'Hara Benjamin" by George C Wright: Robert Charles O'Hara Benjamin, (1855 - 1900), journalist and lawyer, was born on the island of St. Kitts in the West Indies. Details about his early life, including the names of his parents and his education, are not known. In the fall of 1869 he arrived in New York, where he worked as soliciting agent for the New York Star and then as city editor for the Progressive American.

Benjamin apparently became a U.S. citizen in the early 1870s, and in 1876 he gave speeches in support of Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate for president. He was rewarded with a position as a letter carrier in New York City but quit after nine months and moved to Kentucky, where he taught school. While there, Benjamin also took up the study of law. He continued his studies after being named principal of a school in Decatur, Alabama, and was admitted to the bar at Nashville, Tennessee, in January 1880.

Before and after his admission to the bar, Benjamin continued his career in journalism. In total, he edited and/or owned at least eleven black newspapers, including the Colored Citizen of Pittsburgh; The Chronicle of Evansville, Illinois; the Nashville Free Lance (where, as contributing editor, he wrote under the name "Cicero"); the Negro American of Birmingham, Alabama; the Los Angeles Observer; and the San Francisco Sentinel. When Benjamin worked at each of these papers is unclear. He was apparently in Birmingham in 1887, Los Angeles in 1888, and San Francisco in 1891. He also worked for the Daily Sun, a white-owned newspaper in Los Angeles.

In addition to his journalism, Benjamin also published a number of books and pamphlets that reflected the wide range of his interests. In 1883 he published Poetic Gems, a small collection of poetry, and in 1888 he published Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture. He was perhaps best known for Southern Outrages: A Statistical Record of Lawless Doings (1894). In 1886 Benjamin traveled to Canada on a speaking tour.

For twenty years Benjamin maintained a legal practice in the cities where he edited newspapers. One of his cases received widespread publicity: in Richmond, Virginia, in 1884 he won an acquittal of a black woman charged with murder. At a time when most white newspapers spoke of blacks in derogatory and racist terms, Benjamin's skills as a lawyer drew favorable comment from white newspapers in Richmond, Los Angeles, and Lexington.

Benjamin, however, did not court white opinion, although he well understood the risk that African Americans ran in challenging whites in civil rights, politics, and race relations. Benjamin was a vocal critic of racial discrimination and went much further than most black leaders; instead of simply denouncing Jim Crow legislation, he urged blacks to defend themselves when attacked by whites. Such an outspoken attitude led to Benjamin being forced to leave Brinkley, Arkansas, in 1879 and Birmingham in 1887. Irvine Garland Penn, author of The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (1891), said of Benjamin: "He is fearless in his editorial expression; and the fact that he is a negro does not lead him to withhold his opinions upon the live issues of the day, but to give them in a courageous manner."

In December 1892 Benjamin married Lula M. Robinson; they had a son and a daughter. The family settled in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1897. To the dismay of some whites, Benjamin quickly became involved in local politics. On October 2, 1900 he argued with Michael Moynahan, a Democratic precinct worker, over the white man's harassment of blacks wishing to register to vote. Late that evening Moynahan killed Benjamin. At the trial several days later, he pleaded not guilty by reasons of self-defense. The judge accepted Moynahan's claim and dismissed the case, even though Benjamin had been shot in the back.

Because of his militant stance, his journalism and other writings, and his legal career, R. C. O. Benjamin deserves serious attention from scholars. His tragic death is also a reminder that throughout American history even highly respected black leaders have been vulnerable to white violence.

He is buried in African Cemetery No. 2 in Lexington, Kentucky.

Source: Joshua Soule Smith papers, 1863-1905