According to Orville Burton, "Tillman's legacy for South Carolina and the nation is controversial and disturbing. White and black South Carolinians interpret Tillman's accomplishments in contradictory ways." A national hero to white supremacists, according to an article on Tillman for "The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education", "for African Americans, he was the 'devil incarnate. No African American was elected to Congress under the 1895 constitution until the Civil Rights Movement, nor were any elected to statewide or county office after 1900.