He was taken by his owner, Elizabeth Turner, with his mother to Alabama at age five, as part of the forced migration of the internal slave trade.

Gee owned a hotel and a livery stable and permitted Turner to manage the businesses and keep part of the profits.

The troops burned two–thirds of the city and, along with his white neighbors, Turner suffered great financial loss.

[2] In 1869, Turner was elected a Selma councilman, but he resigned in protest after being offered compensation because he believed public officials should not be paid when economic conditions were poor.

[citation needed] In Congress he worked to restore political and legal rights to Confederates who had fought against the United States in the American Civil War.

[citation needed] He also fought for the repeal of the tax on cotton, on the grounds that it hurt poor African Americans.

Turner’s relative conservatism, his refusal to make patronage appointments on a partisan basis, and his failure to pass economic revitalization bills roiled voters.

Prominent African–American leaders noted condescendingly that during his industrious but modest past Turner had been a “barroom owner, livery stable keeper, and a man destitute of education.” The black elite—fearing Turner would embarrass them because, they claimed, he lacked the social graces, manners, and experience of the upper class—backed Philip Joseph, a freeborn newspaper editor.

White candidate Frederick G. Bromberg, running on the Democratic and Liberal Republican ticket, benefited from the split African–American vote, winning the general election with a 44 percent plurality.