Black History fact #3: John Mercer Langston

What's going on everybody and welcome to a another a day with crime black history month fact edition. Of course I am your host, David. So let's get started. Today we are gonna learn about the first black man to ever become a lawyer. John Mercer Langston, who was the first black man to become a lawyer when he passed the bar in Ohio in 1854. 

Where he was elected to the post of town clerk from Brownhelm Ohio in [00:01:00] 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. All right, let's learn a little bit more about John Mercer Langston. 

He was born free in 1829 in Louisa county, Virginia, the youngest of a daughter and three sons of Lucy Jane Langston. freed woman of mixed African-American and native American descent. She may have had ancestry from the regional Pamunkey tribe. Their father was Ralph Quarles, a white planter from England, 

and her former master. Quarles had free Lucy and their daughter, Maria in 1806 in the course of what was a relationship of more than 25 years. 

After that there three sons were born free as their [00:02:00] mother was free. John's older brothers were Gideon and Charles Henry. 

Lucy had three children with another partner before she moved into the great house and deepen her relationship with quarrels. There are three sons were born after this. Of the older half siblings, William Langston was most involved Quarles sons. . After their father's death, he relocated with him and a guardian to chill, a culty, Ohio. 

Before his death Ralph Quarles arranged for his Quaker friend, William Gootz to be made guardian of his children. As requested by Quarles , after the parents both died in 1833. When John Langston was four, Gootz moved with the boys and their half-brother William Langston to chili coffee Ohio, in a free state. 

Quarles have reserved funds for the boys' education in an 1835, the older brothers Gideon and Charles started at the Oberlin [00:03:00] preparatory school. Where they were the first African American students to be admitted. 

Gideon look much like his father at the age of 21 Gideon took Quarles his surname and thereafter was known as Gideon Quarles . Doing this time, young John Mercer Langston lived in Cincinnati part of the time with John Woodson and his wife. He also attended the private Gilmore high school. The youngest Langston followed his brother's enrolling in the Oberlin preparatory program. 

John Langston earned a bachelor's degree in 1849 and a master's degree in theology in 1852 from Overland college. He is the first known black, to apply to an American law school. Denied admission to law schools in New York and Ohio because of his race. Langston study law or read the law as well as the common practice, then, 

as an apprentice under abolitionists attorney and Republican US [00:04:00] congressmen. Philemon bliss in nearby Elyria. He was admitted to the Ohio bar, the first black in 1854. In Ohio Langston was closely associated with abolitionists lawyer, Sherlock James Andrews. All right. So if you pick it up on that, yes. 

His father was also his mother's owner. But she was free. Being that her husband was her owner , he was able to do that. So John Mercer grew up, as what they call back then a free Negro. He was never enslaved. And he did not know slavery. 

This, of course commonly happened with white owners and their slaves sometimes. Some people think is because of an abusive situation. Other people feel that is because they were taken advantage of. I do think those things do happen.

But [00:05:00] as strange as it sounds, I do believe doing some of this time. some people did fall in love with their captor. And that could also be because the fact that they really had no outside place to go and maybe that's what happened. 

 So let's move on to, learn a little bit more about langston here. In 1854, he married Carolyn Matilda Wall at the time was senior at Oberlin college. From North Carolina, she was the daughter of an enslaved mother and Colonel Stephen Wall. A wealthy white planter. Wall freed his mixed race daughters Sarah and Carolyn, and sent them to Ohio to be raised in an affluent Quaker household and educated. 

And intellectual partner of Langston, Carolyn had five children with him. One of whom died in childhood. When Langston was serving as Dean of Howard University's law school, which he developed. He and his family met James Carroll Napier, a student there. Napier married their [00:06:00] daughter Nettie who had graduated from Oberlin college. 

She later became an important activist. After law school Napier had returned to Nashville, Tennessee. To set up his law practice before marriage. There he also became a successful businessman and politician. He was appointed in 1911 as register of the treasury and president William Howard Tafts administration. 

And was one of four members of his black cabinet. 

Mr. John Mercer Langston had a long and lengthy career, I'll put that down for you guys to read. All of that. Just a couple of tidbits. He did work with his older brothers, Gideon and Charles. They did become active in the abolitionist movement. 

He did help refugee slaves escape. he was a part of the underground railroad. 

and then in 1863, when the federal government approved founding of the United States colored troops. John was there and he was appointed to recruit African Americans to fight for the [00:07:00] union army. So thats is a little bit about that. A few of his legacies and honors the John Mercer langston house in Overland, Ohio has been designated as a national historic landmark. 

The town of Langston Oklahoma founded in 1890 as an all black town was named for him. The historically black college in the town founded in 1897 as the Oklahoma colored agricultural and normal university. Was renamed Langston university in honor of John Mercer Langston in 1941. There was also a Langston high school in Johnson city Tennessee, which was established in 1893. It was named for Langston . 

There's John M Lincoln high school in Danville Virginia was also named for John Mercer Langston as well as Langston high school in hot Springs, Arkansas. Future leaders who attended this school included professional football player, Ike Thomas civil rights activists Mamie Phipps Clark, and physician Edith May Irby [00:08:00] Jones. 

And there's also a John Mercer Langston elementary school at 33 P street, Northwest in Washington, DC. Which of course was named in his honor. It opened in 1902 as a school for black students and operated until 1993. In 97, the building served as a homeless shelter, but it was mostly been vacant since the school. 

Closed. And then on July 17th, 2021 the Arlington county Virginia county board voted to rename a portion of us route 29. Previously named Lee highway after John M Langston and elementary and community center. On us route 29 already bear his name. 

All right. So that is about. John Mercer Langston the first black lawyer. We probably will talk about this year Langston Hughes. I love Langston Hughes. He is a great poet. If you never read anyof his stuff, you gotta read some Langston Huges stuff. , but we will probably talk about him [00:09:00] later on doing these facts this year. 

But just wanted to pass it on the long, we can do anything that we set our minds to. We got people doing big things back in, challenging times. Yes, we are living in challenging times as African Americans. But the one thing that I can say is that we are all doing this out of slavery at least. 

In the physical form. And we do have seemingly I guess more opportunities than was had back then. So John Mercer Langston breaking the glass for African-American lawyers. By becoming the first one. 

All right, guys, I thank you for joining me for this African American history fact. I hope that you guys are enjoying these and that you're learning something along the way. Feel free to go ahead and send an email over to a day with crime@gmail.com with [00:10:00] any feedback or questions that you may have also remember to always rate and comment on the show. 

You can also do this over at our website, www.adaywithcrime.com All right guys. Until the next time, I hope you guys be good to yourself and to each other. And I'm going to catch you. On the next one.