Reviewing my copy of this black lawyer historical reference by Dr. J. Clay Smith, our property law professor at Howard U. Law School, 1973-1976, I was able to answer some questions that I had been confused about.
First, the first black lawyer admitted to practice in Missouri. He says that was "likely" John H. Johnson, who was admitted to the Supreme Court, in St. Louis, in December 1871, pursuant to the motion of A.J.P. Garesche. Johnson was in private practice and was "a leader in the Colored Emigration Aid Society, a group that gave support to black people who had been uprooted following the Civil War." p.331
Second, James Milton Turner Elementary was the name of my grade school in Meacham Park, Missouri. He was also a lawyer, according to Dr. Gary R. Kremer's stellar biography, but how or when he became one, is left hazy. Smith writes that Turner, "who had served as minister to Liberia between 1871 to 1879," and law partner, Sherman Tecumseh Wiggins, "represented the interests of black freedmen in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations..in oil matters." p.506 Smith and Kremer agree here. Then, as though anticipating my question, Smith writes in footnote 213, on p. 534, the following: "Just when and where John (sic) Milton Turner became a lawyer is unknown... Perhaps Turner studied law in his native state of Missouri, to which he returned after serving in Monrovia. However it is more likely that Turner was admitted to the bar of Oklahoma where, prior to statehood, the admission standards were less stringent."
Third, I had thought I had read that a black lawyer had been lynched in southern Missouri for organizing black sharecroppers in the 1930s, I was apparently mistaken, it turns out. Smith writes: "During the 1930s, an anti-black climate emerged in Missouri, perhaps in response to black demands for political and social rights. Black lawyers, among them David Marshall Grant, were even agitating for proper health care for blacks in Missouri. Incidents of racial violence against black lawyers were reported in Missouri. William A. Cole was beaten by a mob near the Arkansas state line in Permiscot County, for defending a black client. He was 'chased out of the courtroom and beaten...for representing Negro defendants who had formed an organization to improve conditions of Negro sharecroppers. The volatile atmosphere interfered so significantly with Cole's ability to represent his clients that he filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Missouri Supreme Court to bring the violence to the Court's attention." p. 334
Fourth, I was delighted to learn that "Homer G. Phillips, a 1903 Howard University law graduate and one time candidate for Congress from St. Louis, succeeded Charles H. Calloway as President of the National Bar Association in 1927," which Calloway of Kansas City, had helped organize in 1924, and whose second President he became. Calloway was also the second black lawyer admitted to practice in Kansas City, the first having been "Amasa Knox, an 1897 Howard University law graduate who was admitted to the bar of Kansas City, Missouri in 1898." p. 332-333
Monday, April 27, 2015
EMANCIPATION, THE MAKING OF THE BLACK LAWYER 1844-1944
http://books.google.com/books/about/Emancipation.html?id=1lOIjQUG4aoC
Reviewing my copy of this black lawyer historical reference by Dr. J. Clay Smith, our property law professor at Howard U. Law School, 1973-1976, I was able to answer some questions that I had been confused about.
First, the first black lawyer admitted to practice in Missouri. He says that was "likely" John H. Johnson, who was admitted to the Supreme Court, in St. Louis, in December 1871, pursuant to the motion of A.J.P. Garesche. Johnson was in private practice and was "a leader in the Colored Emigration Aid Society, a group that gave support to black people who had been uprooted following the Civil War." p.331
Second, James Milton Turner Elementary was the name of my grade school in Meacham Park, Missouri. He was also a lawyer, according to Dr. Gary R. Kremer's stellar biography, but how or when he became one, is left hazy. Smith writes that Turner, "who had served as minister to Liberia between 1871 to 1879," and law partner, Sherman Tecumseh Wiggins, "represented the interests of black freedmen in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations..in oil matters." p.506 Smith and Kremer agree here. Then, as though anticipating my question, Smith writes in footnote 213, on p. 534, the following: "Just when and where John (sic) Milton Turner became a lawyer is unknown... Perhaps Turner studied law in his native state of Missouri, to which he returned after serving in Monrovia. However it is more likely that Turner was admitted to the bar of Oklahoma where, prior to statehood, the admission standards were less stringent."
Third, I had thought I had read that a black lawyer had been lynched in southern Missouri for organizing black sharecroppers in the 1930s, I was apparently mistaken, it turns out. Smith writes: "During the 1930s, an anti-black climate emerged in Missouri, perhaps in response to black demands for political and social rights. Black lawyers, among them David Marshall Grant, were even agitating for proper health care for blacks in Missouri. Incidents of racial violence against black lawyers were reported in Missouri. William A. Cole was beaten by a mob near the Arkansas state line in Permiscot County, for defending a black client. He was 'chased out of the courtroom and beaten...for representing Negro defendants who had formed an organization to improve conditions of Negro sharecroppers. The volatile atmosphere interfered so significantly with Cole's ability to represent his clients that he filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Missouri Supreme Court to bring the violence to the Court's attention." p. 334
Fourth, I was delighted to learn that "Homer G. Phillips, a 1903 Howard University law graduate and one time candidate for Congress from St. Louis, succeeded Charles H. Calloway as President of the National Bar Association in 1927," which Calloway of Kansas City, had helped organize in 1924, and whose second President he became. Calloway was also the second black lawyer admitted to practice in Kansas City, the first having been "Amasa Knox, an 1897 Howard University law graduate who was admitted to the bar of Kansas City, Missouri in 1898." p. 332-333
Reviewing my copy of this black lawyer historical reference by Dr. J. Clay Smith, our property law professor at Howard U. Law School, 1973-1976, I was able to answer some questions that I had been confused about.
First, the first black lawyer admitted to practice in Missouri. He says that was "likely" John H. Johnson, who was admitted to the Supreme Court, in St. Louis, in December 1871, pursuant to the motion of A.J.P. Garesche. Johnson was in private practice and was "a leader in the Colored Emigration Aid Society, a group that gave support to black people who had been uprooted following the Civil War." p.331
Second, James Milton Turner Elementary was the name of my grade school in Meacham Park, Missouri. He was also a lawyer, according to Dr. Gary R. Kremer's stellar biography, but how or when he became one, is left hazy. Smith writes that Turner, "who had served as minister to Liberia between 1871 to 1879," and law partner, Sherman Tecumseh Wiggins, "represented the interests of black freedmen in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations..in oil matters." p.506 Smith and Kremer agree here. Then, as though anticipating my question, Smith writes in footnote 213, on p. 534, the following: "Just when and where John (sic) Milton Turner became a lawyer is unknown... Perhaps Turner studied law in his native state of Missouri, to which he returned after serving in Monrovia. However it is more likely that Turner was admitted to the bar of Oklahoma where, prior to statehood, the admission standards were less stringent."
Third, I had thought I had read that a black lawyer had been lynched in southern Missouri for organizing black sharecroppers in the 1930s, I was apparently mistaken, it turns out. Smith writes: "During the 1930s, an anti-black climate emerged in Missouri, perhaps in response to black demands for political and social rights. Black lawyers, among them David Marshall Grant, were even agitating for proper health care for blacks in Missouri. Incidents of racial violence against black lawyers were reported in Missouri. William A. Cole was beaten by a mob near the Arkansas state line in Permiscot County, for defending a black client. He was 'chased out of the courtroom and beaten...for representing Negro defendants who had formed an organization to improve conditions of Negro sharecroppers. The volatile atmosphere interfered so significantly with Cole's ability to represent his clients that he filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Missouri Supreme Court to bring the violence to the Court's attention." p. 334
Fourth, I was delighted to learn that "Homer G. Phillips, a 1903 Howard University law graduate and one time candidate for Congress from St. Louis, succeeded Charles H. Calloway as President of the National Bar Association in 1927," which Calloway of Kansas City, had helped organize in 1924, and whose second President he became. Calloway was also the second black lawyer admitted to practice in Kansas City, the first having been "Amasa Knox, an 1897 Howard University law graduate who was admitted to the bar of Kansas City, Missouri in 1898." p. 332-333
