*On this date, in 1807, the Slave Trade Act was passed. Officially, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was a bill of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. It did not abolish the practice of slavery; it encouraged British action to press other nation-states to abolish their slave trades. Many of […]
learn moreSalmon Portland Chase, a white man, was born on this date in 1808. He was a White American teacher, abolitionist, lawyer, and judge.
learn more*On this date in 1809, Jonathan Jasper Wright was born. He was an Black lawyer and politician.
Wright attended Lancaster University. Upon completing his legal studies, he attempted to stand the Pennsylvania bar, but it wasn’t allowed, presumably because of his race. Wright accepted a position in Beaufort to open a school and teach the newly freed slaves. In addition to teaching school, he taught the Black citizens of the community. He lectured every Thursday evening on legal and political matters. He gave legal advice, particularly on labor relations.
learn more*Benjamin Hayes was born on this date in 1815. He was a white-American pioneer, lawyer, and judge. Benjamin Ignatius Hayes was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from St. Mary’s University. On November 16th, 1848, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Emily Martha Chauncey of Harford County, Maryland, and in 1849, he “set out from Independence, […]
learn more*The Missouri Compromise with legislative measures was enacted on this date in 1820. This measure allowed The United States Congress to thus regulate the extension of slavery in the United States for the next three decades.
learn more*Alexander G. Clark was born on this date in 1826. He was a Black laborer, barber, lawyer and activist.
He was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, to John Clark, a former slave, and Rebecca Darnes Clark. At 13, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to learn barbering from an uncle, who also made sure the boy was well-schooled in other areas. Clark left Cincinnati in October 1841, working for a few months as a bartender on the steamboat George Washington before arriving, at 16, in Muscatine (then called Bloomington, in Iowa Territory). It was May 22, 1842.
learn more*Charles Vanderburgh was born on this date in 1829. He was a white American lawyer, abolitionist and judge.
Born in Saratoga County, New York, Charles Edwin Vanderburgh graduated from Yale University in 1852. He taught school and studied law in Oxford, New York. In 1856, Vanderburgh moved to Minnesota Territory and practiced law in Minneapolis. In 1859, elected District Judge, Fourth Judicial District.
learn more*George Ruffin was born on this date in 1834. He was a Black business owner, attorney, and judge. George Lewis Ruffin was from Richmond, Virginia, the son of free Blacks. He was educated in Boston, Massachusetts, and soon became a force in the city’s civic leadership. After marrying Josephine St. Pierre, Ruffin supported his family by working as a barber. […]
learn more*The Ashworth Act was passed on this date in 1840. The Texas Senate passed this legislation. It exempted the Ashworth Family, freedmen, and formerly enslaved people in the Republic of Texas from a new law stipulating that all Black Texans either leave or be enslaved. The Ashworths were Portuguese North Africans. They migrated from South Carolina and […]
learn more*On this date, 1841, United States v. Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841), was decided. This was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of Africans on board the Spanish schooner La Amistad in 1839. It was an unusual freedom suit that involved international issues, parties, and United States law. The case was the most important court case involving slavery […]
learn more*On this date in 1842, Prigg v. Pennsylvania was decided. This was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the federal Fugitive Slave Act (1793) precluded a Pennsylvania state law that prohibited Blacks from being taken from the free state of Pennsylvania into slavery. The Court overturned the conviction of slavecatcher Edward Prigg as a result. Occurring under the presidency […]
learn more*Richard Theodore Greener was born on this date in 1844. He was an African American administrator, politician, lawyer, and educator.
From Philadelphia, when Greener was about nine, his father left the family to pursue mining opportunities in California. Tragically, his father was presumed dead after efforts to locate him failed. His mother moved the family to Boston, then to Cambridge in search of educational opportunities for her son. Greener received his early education at the Broadway Grammar School until he was about 14, when he quit to support his mother.
learn more*Moorfield Storey was born on this date in 1845. He was a white-American lawyer, anti-imperial activist, and civil rights leader. Moorfield Storey was born in 1845 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His family descended from the earliest Puritan settlers in New England and had close connections with the abolitionist movement. His father was a Boston lawyer. Young Storey attended the Boston […]
learn more*John L. Waller was born on this date in 1850. He was a Black lawyer, politician, journalist, publisher, businessman, military leader, and diplomat. John Lewis Waller was born into slavery in New Madrid County, Missouri. At the end of the American Civil War, he moved with his family to a farm in Tama County, Iowa. […]
learn moreThis date marks the birth of Charlotte E. Ray in 1850. She was a Black teacher and the first Black female lawyer in the United States.
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