[2] Long was born into slavery to an enslaved mother and a white father[2] near the city of Knoxville in Crawford County, Georgia on March 3, 1836.

By the end of the American Civil War an emancipated Long had become a successful merchant tailor in Macon, Georgia.

Georgia had no congressional representation from March 1869 to December 1870 due to the states failure to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment.

[4] Long is best known for his speech on the floor of the House of Representatives in opposition of a measure to provide amnesty to former Confederates: Do we, then, really propose here today, when the country is not ready for it, when those disloyal people still hate this government, when loyal men dare not carry the ‘stars and stripes’ through our streets, for if they do they will be turned out of employment, to relieve from political disability the very men who have committed these Kuklux outrages?

If this House removes the disabilities of disloyal men by modifying the test-oath, I venture to prophesy you will again have trouble from the very same men who gave you trouble before.He was not a candidate for re-election in 1870 due to anti-Reconstruction efforts by the white-majority Georgia GOP,[2] but remained active in politics and serve as a delegate to the Republican National Convention from 1872 to 1880.