James Thomas Rapier (November 13, 1837 – May 31, 1883) was an American lawyer and politician from Alabama during the Reconstruction Era.

Born free in Alabama, he went to school in Canada and earned a law degree in Scotland before being admitted to the bar in Tennessee.

He worked in 1874 for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which guaranteed equal access to public accommodations until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1883.

In 1856 Rapier traveled to Canada with his uncle Henry Thomas, his father's half-brother, who settled in Buxton, Ontario, an all-black community made up chiefly of African Americans.

King had bought land (with Canadian government approval) for resettlement of black American refugees who had escaped to Canada during the slavery years via the Underground Railroad.

[citation needed] Working as a reporter for a northern newspaper, Rapier bought 200 acres in Maury County, Tennessee, and became a cotton planter.

Rapier recalled being denied service at every inn at stopping points between Montgomery, Alabama, and Washington, D.C., despite being a US Congressman.

He said that in Europe, "they have princes, dukes, and lords; in India, "brahmans or priests, who rank above the sudras or laborers;" in America, "our distinction is color.

"[4] After losing his re-election campaign in 1874, Rapier was appointed by the Republican presidential administration as a collector for the Internal Revenue Service in Alabama, serving in this role until his death.

In 1979, historian John Hope Franklin gave a presidential address [1] Archived 2013-09-12 at the Wayback Machine to the American Historical Association.

He discussed how Walter L. Fleming of Vanderbilt University, one of the most prominent of the influential historians of the 20th-century Dunning School, had written about Rapier.

Franklin observed that Fleming's viewpoint, which had been hostile to civil and voting rights for African Americans, may have led him to make errors.