Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

May 30, 2025

The Black Congressman Who Quoted the Book of Ruth as Proof That Anyone Could Join the American Experiment

Robert Brown Elliott.

One of the delights of Shavuot is the custom of reading the book of Ruth. Examining how this book has been used in American public life, Stuart Halpern looks at its citation by Franklin Roosevelt’s adviser Harry Hopkins, the activist and educator Helen Keller, and the 19th-century Congressman Robert Brown Elliott. The last of these, whose distinguished career included serving as the first African American to command the South Carolina National Guard, said the following in a speech before the House of Representatives in favor of the 1875 Civil Rights Act:

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