Benjamin Franklin Randolph (1820 – October 16, 1868) was an American educator, spiritual advisor, newspaper editor who served as a South Carolina state senator during the Reconstruction Era.

The only African American officer in the 26th, he received the Regimental banner from Vincent Colyer at the unit's commissioning ceremony on March 27, 1864.

The unit was deployed to Beaufort, South Carolina, in March 1864, and participated in actions at the Battle of John's Island in the first week of July, sustaining 97 casualties.

My learning and long experience as a teacher North, and my faithful service as Chaplain demand that I seek such a place.

[7] Randolph also toured established schools throughout the state to review their operations and ensure they were adequately staffed and supplied.

[10] In late 1867 Randolph was elected as a delegate to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868 under the Reconstruction Laws set by the U. S. Congress.

He also successfully introduced an "equal protection clause", regardless of race, consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which South Carolina ratified the following year.

In October 1868 he conducted a train tour to the upcountry region of South Carolina on behalf of the national Republican ticket (Randolph was still in the beginning of his 4-year term as state senator and was not standing for re-election).

[10] A subsequent investigation by the state authorities resulted in a warrant being issued in Columbia for the arrest of D. Wyatt Aiken, a former Confederate Army colonel and prominent planter who lived nearby in Cokesbury, South Carolina.

Aiken had publicly issued threats against Randolph's life[12] which had been reported by the federal military authority in the region.

Included in the committee report was the testimony of a man who came forward and confessed to involvement in the assassination, and who testified that he belonged to a group whose goal was to "kill out the leaders of the Republican Party and drive them out of the state."

Nonetheless, several innovations introduced by Randolph were retained, in particular free public education and the franchise for landless men, as well as the "equal protection of the law" clause.

Eight other Reconstruction-era African-American legislators were later buried at Randolph Cemetery, as well as bishops, attorneys, and Columbia's first black postmaster.