Harriet Elizabeth Byrd

She was born Harriet Elizabeth Rhone in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was the daughter of Robert C. "Buck" Rhone, a first class mechanic for Union Pacific Railroad, and Sudie Smith Rhone, a homemaker. Her paternal grandfather Charles J. Rhone first settled in Wyoming in 1876, where he worked as a cowboy and railroader in Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming. She graduated from Cheyenne High School in 1944. Three years later, she married James W. Byrd on August 8, 1947, who would later become the first African-American police chief in Wyoming in 1966.[2] The couple had three children: Robert, James, and Linda; and six grandchildren. Their son, also named James W. Byrd served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 2009 to 2019, and was a candidate for Wyoming Secretary of State in the 2018 election.

Byrd graduated with a bachelor's degree in education from West Virginia State College, a historically black college in Institute, West Virginia in 1949, and returned to Wyoming in order to apply for a teaching job with the Laramie County School District, but was denied employment because of her race. She was subsequently hired as a civilian instructor in the Department of Administrative Services at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. In 1959, the Laramie County School District reversed its earlier decision and hired her as an elementary school teacher based in Cheyenne for 27 years. In 1976, she earned an M.A. degree from the University of Wyoming.[1][2]

Byrd served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1980 to 1988, and in the Wyoming Senate from 1988 to 1992, becoming the first African-American to serve in both houses.[1] During her career in the state legislature, she sponsored legislation establishing a state holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., achieving a partial victory in 1991 through the establishment of the Martin Luther King, Jr./Wyoming Equality Day which is popularly recognized as King Day in the state. Other legislation she sponsored included requiring the use of child safety restraints, expansion of available handicapped parking, and establishment of social services programs for adults.[3]

Following her retirement from the Wyoming Legislature in 1992, Byrd lived with her husband in Cheyenne, Wyoming, until his death on December 5, 2005.[4] Byrd died on January 27, 2015, at her home in Cheyenne, Wyoming.[5][6]