Recollections of the Inhabitants, Localities, Superstitions, and Kuklux Outrages of the Carolinas

John Patterson Green (1845-1940) was born in New Bern, North Carolina, to free African-American parents. His first published work was Essays on Miscellaneous Subjects by a Self-Educated Colored Youth (1866), after which he graduated from Central High School and Union Law School in Cleveland. Green became the first African American to be elected to political office in Cuyahoga County. In 1873, he became a justice of the peace. In 1881 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives for the session of 1882- 1883 and again in 1890-1891. He also served in the Ohio Senate General Assembly in 1892-1893. As a representative, Green introduced the legislation that established Labor Day in Ohio. He also advocated civil rights laws for the state. Green was only the second African American to serve in the Ohio House of Representatives and the first to serve in the Ohio Senate. He later wrote an autobiography entitled, Fact Stranger Than Fiction (1920).