William Syphax

rdf:langString William Syphax

rdf:langString William Syphax (c. 1825 — June 15, 1891) was born into slavery but manumitted when he was about one year old, along with his mother Maria Carter Syphax and sister. As a young man, he became a U.S. government civil servant in Republican administrations, and built a network in the capital city. He gained passage of a relief bill in Congress in 1866 to restore 17 acres of land his mother had received from her father, planter George Washington Parke Custis, the only grandson of the late First Lady Martha Washington. After the Civil War, Syphax served as the first African-American president of the Board of Trustees of Colored Schools of Washington and Georgetown in Washington, D.C.