John Carraway was a freedman whose father was Charles Carraway, a wealthy, white planter in New Bern, North Carolina. Carraway's mother was a slave whose name was unrecorded. Born in 1834, he was freed when his father died and went to Brooklyn, New York where he became first a tailor and then a seaman. During the War Between the States, he enlisted in the famous 54th Massachusetts regiment and is credited with authoring a song entitled “Colored Volunteers” about the experience of the black soldiers in the 54th Massachusetts.
Following the War, Carraway went to Mobile to live with his mother, where he became president of the Loyal Newspaper Society of Alabama and assistant editor of the Mobile Nationalist, the first black-oriented newspaper in Alabama. Carraway was a delegate to the Alabama Constitutional Convention of 1867 and in 1868 was elected as a Mobile alderman. In 1869, he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives.
On March 22, 1870, the Chicago Legal Journal announced that Carraway was admitted to practice before the Montgomery Circuit Court earlier that year. Articles in local newspapers debate this issue, ridiculing and disparaging Carraway, claiming that he was not admitted. A Letter to the Editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, printed in February 1870, purportedly from Carraway himself casts doubts on his own admission to the bar. Considering the animosity toward freedmen and both white and black Republicans by the Alabama press at that time, the truth is difficult to discern. Shortly after this, on April 20,1871, the Montgomery Advertiser reprinted an announcement from the Mobile Register that “John Carraway, a late negro legislator for this city and State, died day before yesterday.” The announcement callously concluded, “So they go – Berry, Carraway, Europe next.”
Unfortunately, the Montgomery Circuit Court records for that period have been lost or destroyed, so it is impossible to determine if John Carraway was admitted or not.
On January 04, 1872, a young Mobile attorney, Moses Wenslydale Moore, became the first African American to be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Alabama. Moore was born on February 15, 1841 in Demerara, British Guiana (now the country of Guyana) making him a free-born subject of the United Kingdom. He came to the United States aboard the ship Koomar on October 19, 1867, landing in the Port of New York. According to the passenger list, Moore, who listed his profession as a school teacher, boarded the ship in London.
Four years later, in 1871, Moore was among the first graduates from Howard University and was admitted to the Bar of the District of Columbia. From there, he went to Mobile, Alabama, where he applied for admission to the Bar. During this time period, admission to the bar was by means of an examination by a judge of a candidate's legal knowledge. In November 1871, Moore presented himself before Circuit Judge John Elliott for such an examination. Judge Elliott asked retired Alabama Supreme Court Justice Lyman Gibbons to examine Moore. Four months later, Moore, at the time a resident of Selma, applied for admission to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Alabama. A request which was granted.
The Supreme Court in 1872 included E. Wolsey Peck as Chief Justice with Thomas M. Peters and Benjamin F. Saffold as Associate Justices. Patrick Ragland, who sponsored Moore before the Court was, in 1872, serving as the Marshal and Librarian of the Supreme Court.
Seven years after his admission, on June 11, 1879, Moore, in Lowndes County, Mississippi, applied for a passport with the intention of traveling abroad. Whether he returned to British Guiana or possibly to Great Britain is a mystery. If nothing else, however, he deserves to be remembered for being the first African American admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Alabama.
Click here to learn about Roderick B. Thomas.
Samuel R. Lowery was born to Peter and Ruth Lowery in December 1832. His mother died in 1840, leaving his father to raise him. Lowery's father was born a slave, but purchased his freedom. In 1848, Lowery became a Christian Church minister. In December 1856, his life and the lives of local free blacks were drastically changed, because the debate over slavery during the 1856 presidential caused a local race riot in which immigrants and poor whites vented their latent resentment of wealthy free blacks by attacking them and their businesses. Fearing for their safety, several free black families, including the Lowerys, went to the North. In 1857, Lowery became the pastor of Harrison Street Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. By 1859, he was organizing Christian Churches in Canada.
After the Civil War, Lowery and his family settled in Nashville, Tennessee. He became a Christian Church missionary, chaplain for the 9th U.S. Colored Artillery Battalion, and teacher for the 2nd U.S. Colored Light Artillery, Battery A troops. Between 1865 and 1875, Lowery was involved with the State Colored Men's Conventions, the National Emigration Society, and the Tennessee State Equal Rights League. He studied law under a white attorney in Rutherford County and began a law practice.
In 1875, Lowery moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he established Lowery's Industrial Academy. He was admitted to the Alabama Bar that same year. On February 02, 1880, Lowery was admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, making him the first black lawyer from Alabama to be admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Herschel Vivian Cashin was born February 10, 1854 in Augusta, Georgia to John Cashin, an Irishman, and Lucinda Bowdre, a free mulatto. In 1856, his family moved to Philadelphia. However, Cashin moved back to Georgia in 1869 during the Reconstruction Era. While it is unclear how long he resided in Georgia, it is known that he was living in Alabama a few years later settling in Montgomery, Alabama. In the fall of 1874, he ran for the state legislature as a Radical Republican. He was among five Republican compatriots elected to the legislature in Montgomery; four were African American. While in the legislature, two of his bills passed. One was an act authorizing the transfer of cases from city court to circuit. The other was an act to precent sales of liquor within three miles of Dublin, Montgomery County. He was reelected in 1876. While in the state legislature, he began to study law. On Wednesday, January 16, 1878, Cashin was admitted to the Alabama Bar by examination in open court.