People, Locations, Episodes

The 13th Amendment Of America’s Constitution is Adopted

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified on this date in 1865.

George Woodson, Lawyer born

*The birth of George H. Woodson in 1866 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American lawyer.

The Reconstruction Acts are Decided

*The Reconstruction Acts were decided on this date in 1867. The 40th United States Congress passed four statutes during the Reconstruction Era, which addressed the requirement for Southern States to be readmitted to the Union. The initial legislation, called the Military Reconstruction Acts, was passed on March 4, 1867. The title was “An act to provide for the […]

William Lewis, Athlete, and Scholar born

On this date, we remember, the birth of William H. Lewis, born in 1868. He was an African American lawyer and football player.

Born to former slaves in Berkley, Virginia, William Henry Lewis worked to pay for his education at Virginia Normal Institute (now Virginia State University). He later attended Amherst College in Massachusetts. Excelling as an orator and athlete, Lewis was one of the first Black men to play collegiate football, serving as team captain in 1890 and 1891. He met his future wife (Elizabeth Baker) at his graduation.

William T. Francis, Minnesota Lawyer born

On his date, we mark the birth of William T. Francis in 1869. He was an African American politician and lawyer.

Francis was born in Indiana and went to Minnesota at an early age. After completing his education, he served in the legal department of Northern Pacific Railroad. Francis opened his own law firm in St. Paul before World War II.

In 1920, he was president-elector at the Republican State Convention. Francis and his wife were instrumental in getting an anti-lynching law passed in the Minnesota State Senate in the 1920s.

The 15th Amendment is Ratified

*On this date in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. This guaranteed African American men the right to vote.

The 15th Amendment maintains “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by a State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The text also gives Congress the power to enforce the amendment.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 Is Passed

*On this date, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed. The Enforcement Act or the Force Act was a United States federal law enacted during Reconstruction in response to civil rights violations against Blacks. The bill was passed by the 43rd United States Congress and signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant. The act was designed to “protect all citizens in their civil and […]

Lutie Lytle, Lawyer and Teacher born

*Lutie A. Lytle was born on this date in 1875. She was a Black lawyer and teacher. Lutie A. Lytle was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and was one of six surviving children of John R. and Mary Ann “Mollie” (Chesebro) Lytle, both formerly enslaved people. In 1882, the Lytle family moved to Topeka, Kansas. Lutie […]

James R. Johnston, Canadian Lawyer born

*James R. Johnston was born on this date in 1876. He was a Black Canadian lawyer and community leader. James Robinson Johnston was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was the eldest of the five sons of William Johnston, a shoemaker, and Elizabeth Ann Thomas. His maternal grandparents were Reverend James Thomas, a white man from Wales who headed […]

The Compromise Of 1877, a story

*The Compromise of 1877 was enacted on this date in 1877. This unwritten arrangement, informally arranged among U.S. Congressmen, settled the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election.   This agreement, less than a week before the Presidential inauguration, resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, ending the Reconstruction […]

Arthur Spingarn, Historian, and Lawyer born

*On this date in 1878 Arthur Spingarn was born. He was an Jewish American historian, lawyer and activist.

From New York City, in 1897 he was the younger brother of Joel Spingarn and received his A.B. degree from Columbia University in New York. In 1899, he received a M.A. from Columbia University, in 1900 his LL.B., from Columbia University and practiced law until the 1960s in New York. From 1917-1919, he was a Captain in the Sanitation Corps, American Expeditionary Force, United States Army. In 1919, he married Marion Meyer.

Clara Washington Bruce, Lawyer born

*Clara Washington Bruce was born on this date in 1879.  She was a Black lawyer and administrator. Clara Washington Burrill grew up in a Black middle-class family in Washington, DC, she graduated in 1897 from the city’s M Street High School, a segregated school known for its rigorous curriculum and exceptional faculty. After high school, […]

Bobby Marshall, Minnesota Lawyer, and Athlete born

*Bobby Marshall was born on this date in 1880. He was an African American athlete and lawyer.

Homer Phillips, Lawyer and Public Policy Advocate born

*Homer Phillips was born on this date in 1880. He was a Black lawyer and public policy advocate. Homer Gilliam Phillips was born in Sedalia, Missouri. The son of a Methodist minister, he was orphaned in infancy and raised by an aunt. Phillips’s interest in law led him to Washington, D.C., where he lived with […]

Hugo L. Black, Judge, and Politician born

*Hugo Black was born on this date in 1886.  He was a white-American lawyer, politician, and judge.   Hugo LaFayette Black was the youngest of the eight children of William Lafayette Black and Martha (Toland) Black. He was born in a small wooden farmhouse in Ashland, Alabama, a poor, rural Clay County town in Appalachia. Black descended from Hugh and Mary […]