Elias Polk

Elias Polk was born into slavery in 1806 in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.[1] He and his mother were held by Samuel Polk, who was a surveyor.[1]

Samuel gave Elias, then 18-years-old, to his son James K. Polk as a gift upon the latter's wedding to Sarah Childress in 1824,[2] as was often the custom in slaveholding families. Elias Polk worked as a "body servant", or valet, and "coachman" for James Polk in Columbia, Tennessee.[3][4]

After James Polk was elected President in 1845, he arranged for Elias Polk and his other domestic slaves to join him and work at the White House, in order to support the household.[3] However, Elias Polk was sent to work for attorney James H. Thomas from 1846 to 1847.[1] He worked in the White House again from 1847 until the end of President Polk's term in 1849.[1] He was taken back to Tennessee with James Polk's family.[3]

After the abolition of slavery in the US, Elias Polk continued to live with and work for the widowed, former first lady Sarah Childress Polk at Polk Place in Nashville.[5]

When he received the franchise, Polk became active in the Democratic Party, and "threw in his political lot with displaced slave owners".[4] His political alliance was unusual at a time when most freedmen joined the Republican Party. In 1867 Polk was elected as the president of the Independent Colored Conservative National Club.[6] At a meeting whose speakers included Arthur St. Clair Colyar and Henry S. Foote in June 1867, Polk called for harmony between blacks and whites. He suggested that a new federal tax on cotton production hurt African Americans.[7]

From 1871 to 1876, Polk worked as a porter, or custodian, at the Tennessee Senate in Nashville. He returned to Washington, DC to work as a laborer on the United States Capitol, from 1876 to 1882.[1] After returning to Nashville, Polk traveled back to Washington, D.C. a few years later, where he met President Grover Cleveland three days before his own death.[8]

Polk was married three times. His third wife was Mary Polk.[2] Polk died on December 30, 1886 in Washington, D.C.[3] His body was returned to Nashville, where his funeral was held at Clark's Chapel, later known as Clark Memorial United Methodist Church.[2] He was buried in the Nashville City Cemetery.[2]

According to Zacharie Kinslow of the James K. Polk Ancestral Home, "During his life, Elias Polk went from being a president’s slave to one of the most controversial African-American political activists of his day."[1] For journalist Jesse J. Holland, the author of The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African-American Slaves in the White House, "In today's parlance, we'd call (Polk) an 'Uncle Tom' because he's taking the gentry's side. But that's how he felt."[4]