George B. Vashon
*On this date in 2010, a Black man was admitted to the Allegheny County Bar posthumously 163 years after he applied.
In 1847, the Allegheny County Bar denied George Boyer Vashon entry because he was Black. Vashon reapplied to the bar in 1868 and was again denied. Pennsylvania was a "free state" before the American Civil War, but opportunities for blacks in cities like Pittsburgh were lacking. Vashon studied law under the guidance of attorney Walter Forward, and the Allegheny County Courthouse was 40 years old when Vashon was denied entry into the Allegheny County Bar in 1847.
Vashon went to Washington, D.C. the next month and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States." Vashon also was the first Black man to practice law in New York. Wendell Freeman practiced law for 60 years but had never encountered a case like this. This journal issue of the "Pennsylvania Lawyer" brought the story to his attention a couple of years ago. He petitioned the Pa. Supreme Court on behalf of Vashon's descendant, a Philadelphia attorney, and in the spring of 2010, they got the word that Vashon was posthumously admitted to the Allegheny County Bar.
