DEBRUHL, JOHN (?-?). John Debruhl, black Republican party leader during Reconstruction, was in Galveston by 1869 when the Union League nominated him for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. He failed to win election to Congress but served as a justice of the peace in Galveston from 1870 to 1873 and attended the Convention of Colored Men in July 1873. Debruhl attended the 1882 Republican state convention, where he criticized racially segregated public schools.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Harrel Budd, The Negro in Politics in Texas, 1867-1898 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1925 John H. Heller, Galveston City Directory, 1872 (Galveston, 1872 Merline Pitre, Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas, 1868-1900 (Austin: Eakin, 1985).
