Whereas Joseph Hayne Rainey was born enslaved on June 21, 1832, in Georgetown, South Carolina; Whereas South Carolina prohibited the education of Black Americans, and instead of a formal education, Joseph H. Rainey learned the barbering trade from his father, Edward Rainey; Whereas Edward Rainey used profits from his work as a barber to buy his and his family’s freedom in the early 1840’s; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey eventually moved with his family to Charleston, South Carolina; Whereas in 1859, Joseph H. Rainey married his wife, Susan, with whom he had three children, Joseph, Herbert, and Olive; Whereas in 1861, Joseph H. Rainey was conscripted by the Confederate Army and worked as a ship’s steward aboard a Confederate vessel which secretly carried goods to the Union Navy; Whereas during the Civil War, in 1862, Joseph H. Rainey and his wife and family escaped to Bermuda, a British colony that had abolished slavery in 1834, where he undertook successful entrepreneurial endeavors with his wife; Whereas in 1866 Joseph Rainey and his family moved back to Charleston, South Carolina after the Civil War had ended; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey co-founded the state Republican Party and represented Georgetown, South Carolina on the Party’s central committee; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey participated in the South Carolina State constitutional convention in 1868; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey won election to the House of Representatives in 1870 and was the first African American to serve in the House of Representatives; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey was sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives on December 12, 1870, to represent the 1st District of South Carolina in the Forty-First Congress; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey became the first African American to preside over the House of Representatives on April 29, 1874; Whereas Joseph H. Rainey served with distinction on several committees, including the Committee on Freedmen’s Affairs, the committee handling all legislation concerning formerly enslaved people