🎙️📜"TELL IT LIKE IT IS" Black History Series: Walter Moses Burton (1829?–1913) From Enslaved Man to America’s First Black Elected Sheriff

Before Reconstruction reshaped the South — before voting rights were fully defined — one man in Texas quietly made history.

Walter Moses Burton became the first African American elected sheriff in the United States, a distinction that remains a milestone in American political history.

From Enslavement to Leadership

Born in North Carolina around 1829, Burton was brought to Fort Bend County, Texas, in 1850 at the age of 21 as an enslaved man. During his enslavement, he learned to read and write — skills that would later help define his leadership in public life.

After the Civil War, his former enslaver, Thomas Burton, sold him several large plots of land for $1,900 — a substantial sum at the time. Through land ownership and business acumen, Burton became one of the most influential African Americans in Fort Bend County during Reconstruction.

His rise was not accidental. It was strategic. It was disciplined. And it was historic.