The first African American to become a lawyer and to argue before a jury, was Macon Bolling Allen. Allen was born free on August 4, 1816 in Indiana. His birthplace is unknown. Little is known about Bolling’s early life, but his birth name was actually Allen Macon Bolling. As a young adult, he taught himself to read and write and used these self-developed skills to gain employment as a schoolteacher. In the early 1840’s, Allen left Indiana for Portland, Maine, and changed his name from Allen Macon Bolling to Macon Bolling Allen. He connected with General Samuel Fessenden, a local anti-slavery leader, who took Allen up as a law clerk and apprentice at his firm.
Fessenden encouraged Allen to pursue a license to practice law because anyone could be admitted to the Maine Bar association if they were considered to have good character. Allen then also began advocating against slavery. After working under the general’s wing, Fessenden had decided that Allen had gained enough experience and expertise to become a lawyer. After four years of study, observation, and field experience, General Fessenden introduced Allen to the Portland District Court and vouched for him as a worthy candidate for the bar. The Portland District Court rejected Fessenden’s first motion to admit Allen to the bar in April 1844. They concluded that Allen did not meet the state’s citizenship requirement (being a resident of Massachusetts at the time).
Though Maine’s law contradicted that ruling. It stated that anyone of “good moral character” should be allowed to be admitted to the state bar. Or was it because was not considered a citizen because he was African American? After being denied admission to the bar by the court, Allen applied to be admitted by examination. He faced a hostile examination committee, which Fessenden thought did not want Allen admitted. Nevertheless, Fessenden said, “his qualifications were not denied.” After passing the exam and earning his recommendation, Allen was declared a citizen of Maine and given a license to practice law on July 3, 1844 making him the first Black man who was licensed to practice law in America.
He experienced difficulty finding legal work in Maine, likely because Whites were unwilling to hire a Black attorney and the few Black men that lived in Maine were able to hire Allen as their legal counsel. A year after Allen received his Maine license to practice law, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts in search of work. He passed the Massachusetts bar exam on May 5th, 1845 and opened the first Black law office in America alongside fellow Black attorney, Robert Morris, Jr. He conducted a jury trial in October 1845 that is believed to be the first time an African American lawyer argued before a jury in the United States. The case was a contract dispute. Allen’s client, the defendant, lost, although the jury awarded lower damages than the plaintiff had requested.
Although Allen was able to make a modest income in Boston, racism and discrimination were still present and prevented him from being successful. Allen also met his wife, Hannah Allen in Boston and they had five sons. In 1845, he wrote a letter to John Jay Jr., (the grandson of the country’s first Chief Justice) discussing the difficulty of finding clients in Boston. After becoming licensed to practice law in Boston, Allen caught the attention of abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison. Allen attended an anti-slavery convention in May 1846 in Boston. At the convention, a petition was passed around in opposition to involvement in the Mexican War. However, Allen did not sign the petition, arguing that he was supposed to defend the U.S. Constitution.
This argument was made public in a letter written by Allen that was published in Garrison’s anti-slavery newspaper, “The Liberator“. However, Allen ended his letter arguing that he still adamantly opposed enslavement. In 1848, after passing yet another exam, he was appointed Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County, a county not far from Boston. He became the second Black person to hold a judicial position in the U.S. As Justice of the Peace, Allen would have handled minor crimes and small claims. After the Civil War, Allen moved to Charleston, South Carolina, to open a new legal practice alongside partners with two other African American attorneys, William Whipper and Robert Elliott, making them the first Black law firm in the U.S.
Among other cases, Allen represented several Black defendants who were fighting death sentences. The passing of the Fifteenth Amendment inspired Allen to become involved in politics and he became active in the Republican Party. In 1872, he ran for secretary of state as a Republican, and lost. Sometime in 1873 he received an appointment as Inferior Court Judge in Charleston. A year later, he was elected Judge Probate in Charleston County, South Carolina. Following the Reconstruction period in the South, Allen relocated to Washington, D.C. and worked as a lawyer for the Land and Improvement Association. He held his position with the association until his death on October 10, 1894. Macon Bolling Allen’s legal accomplishments are truly inspiring considering the obstacles he faced.