Black history month: John Mercer Langston was the first black man to become a lawyer

[marble falls]

First Lawyer:John Mercer Langston was the first black man to become a lawyer when he passed the bar in Ohio in 1854. When he was elected to the post of Town Clerk for Brownhelm, Ohio, in 1855 Langston became one of the first African Americans ever elected to public office in America. John Mercer Langston was also the great-uncle of Langston Hughes, famed poet of the Harlem Renaissance.

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-facts

[MLAA]

1. Good to know! Glad you posted this.

[marble falls]

2. I'm going to post one of these every day. This one I chose because it was so near where I ...

grew up. I want to learn all the stuff I should have learned about in school. My history I was was taught over and over. Our history I didn't learn very much about at all. I am the poorer for it. I learned a liberal sort of racism: blacks couldn't contribute because they were held back. They were held back but they certainly did contribute in bigger ways than anecdotes.

[MLAA]

3. I will watch for your posts.

Much of my early education was in the south and was very incomplete. I’m already looking forward to what I will learn from you tomorrow!

[NurseJackie]

19. His photo...

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20. Way cool.

[malaise]

4. K & R

One of my great aunts was the second female black lawyer in a particular state.
She had a fascinating life.

[marble falls]

5. When I was young I worked on a truck in Akron, Ohio and made $.30/hr. The kids there ...

were plenty tough and were determined to get me to swear and smoke a cigarette. I refused and took beating without crying every day and came back for more every single day on time.

Finally a kid of about fourteen (who later became a good friend) asked me why I wouldn't swear or smoke a cigarette.
"Because I want to be a minister." I answered.
"We don't need a minister, we need a lawyer!", he replied.

Now I need a lawyer AND a minister about equally.






You get any of that lottery money yet? I'm getting antsy.

[malaise]

6. Good one

My father wanted me to study law - I told him I preferred justice
The sister after me studied law - after dad died.

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7. I didn't become a lawyer so four years of Latin shot to Hell. My sister and brother are lawyers.

[malaise]

8. I can still conjugate those damned

Latin verbs

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10. amo, amare, amasui

amo, amas, amat, amamus, amasus, amant. puer coca colam amat. Puellae rosas amant.


Ubi sub ubi.

[malaise]

12. Funny how we all conjugate the same verb

[marble falls]

13. Chapter one, Page one.

All I remember Latin III
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.

[Brother Buzz]

9. The first African American graduate from my high school became a lawyer

And went on to become an African American leader in the Communist Party USA and head of the International Labor Defense, a group that offered legal representation to communists, trade unionists, and African Americans in cases involving issues of political or racial persecution.

He married Louise Thompson, a writer who had a long association with the poet Langston Hughes; they collaborated on a proposal for a documentary about Harlem culture.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_L._Patterson

[marble falls]

11. I am amazed how these two stories come into contact.

[Brother Buzz]

16. The Harlem Renaissance was a big fucking deal

Harlem was the intellectual, social, and artistic epicenter for African Americans for a glorious period of time.

[malaise]

18. It is where we merge as a people

The Garvey movement was a critical component.

[Brother Buzz]

21. One could make the argument music made an even bigger impact

Louis Armstrong is the BIG name, but there were a ton of others that made their name during the Harlem Renaissance. Jazz, Baby!

[malaise]

22. No doubt the music was the biggest factor

but Harlem also became home to Afro-Caribbean folks in the same period. Garvey and Claude McKay of If We Must Die fame come to mind

[malaise]

14. WHen I read the OP I wondered if Langston Hughes was named after him

This is his full name
James Mercer Langston Hughes

[oberliner]

15. He is his great-uncle

[malaise]

17. That is clearly stated in the OP

but he was given his full name

[Donkees]

23. ''America's first Black Lawyer, Macon B. Allen'' (?)

Excerpt:

Macon Bolling Allen was born on this date in 1816. He was a Black teacher, lawyer and judge.

From Indiana, born Allen Macon Bolling, he grew up free man. He learned to read and write on his own and eventually landed his first a job as a schoolteacher, where he further improved his reading and writing skills. Allen moved to Portland, Maine in the early 1840s and studied law and worked as a law clerk for General Samuel Fessenden, a local abolitionist and attorney.

After passing the Maine bar exam, he was granted his license to practice law in Maine on July 3, 1844. Allen thus was the first Black man licensed to practice law in the United States. He experienced difficulty finding legal work in Maine because whites were unwilling to hire a black attorney and few Blacks lived in the state. In 1845 he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, walking fifty miles to the bar exam test site because he could not afford transportation, and passing the exam despite his fatigue. Allen and Robert Morris then opened the first Black law office in the United States.

https://aaregistry.org/story/americas-first-black-lawyer-macon-b-allen/