After the war, he moved to Mississippi where he continued his work as a journalist and served for six years in the state legislature.

His father was "Pop" Spelman and was for more than thirty years the pastor of Abyssinia Baptist Church in Waverley Place, New York City.

[2] In New York he became acquainted with many leading journalists of the era, including Horace Greeley and George Alfred Townsend.

He then was a member of the committee which sought to organize the Fremont Legion (named for abolitionist General, John C. Frémont), which was never accepted.

Later in the war he was active in raising recruits from men involved in New York City public schools which formed a battalion known as the "Shaw Cadets" to which Spelman was elected Major.

The nickname came from Robert Gould Shaw, who was famous for leading black soldiers at the Battle of Fort Wagner.

[7] In 1868, Spelman moved to Mississippi with the aid of Rufus L. Perry and the African Civilization Society[8] where he worked as a teacher for the Freedmen's Bureau.

In July 1869 he was appointed justice of the peace and alderman of the city of Canton, Mississippi, by military commander Adelbert Ames and Assistant Internal Revenue Assessor Boutwell on the recommendation of B.

[2] In the 1870s, Spelman was co-founder with James Lynch of the paper, the Jackson Colored Citizen[10] and in 1870 he was a special correspondent of the New York Tribune.

[2] In 1873, Adelbert Ames was elected governor, and Spelman was appointed to his staff and made assistant commissioner of immigration.

In 1884 he was made superintendent of education by the American Baptist Home Mission Society in Mississippi, but he left that position within the year to take charge of the colored exhibits department of the World Cotton Centennial in New Orleans at the call of Bruce.