Story of early Black lawyer offers lesson on unity
As I suggested to Morning Call readers in a July 16, 2020 piece, the history of relations between African Americans and Irish Americans has, in many regards, been a troubled one. But the work of an early Black lawyer conveys a tale of historical hope and connection that attempted to transcend the perniciousness of racial categories, one I think we could all use about now.
Robert Morris was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1823. Morris, the second African American attorney in
U.S. history, went on to practice law in Boston as a member of the firm started by the nation’s first, Macon Bolling Allen.
Morris knew what he was up against being one of two Black lawyers in the entire United States. White Bostonians dismissively pegged him as a substandard lawyer, though, from the beginning, he defeated the odds.
In his very first case, in 1847, Morris defended a Black client suing his white former employer. After a pretrial meeting with opposing counsel, he returned to his office and, he later wrote, “sat down and cried.” Morris “thought of the mighty odds” against him. It was at that moment that he “made the vow” he never broke: “I would prove myself to be a man and a gentleman, and succeed in the practice of law, or I would die.” In the end, Morris won.
Morris was known in the Irish community as the “Black lawyer,” and some referred to him by the more egregious term, “N——r Morris.” But, rather than getting triggered and seeking a safe space to boo-hoo whine, he aimed at a greater target than complaint.
He proved wrong and quieted the ignorance uttered by Boston’s recent arrivals from the Emerald Isle with his brilliance. Seeing through the ignorant comments, Morris realized that most people were simple and tribal; he peered into the souls of his Irish neighbors to see opportunity for socio-economic connection.
With that frame of mind, Morris’s successful firm predominately served Black and less-fortunate working-class Irish clients.
I am sure there are some readers wondering why the Irish immigrants didn’t seek Irish American counsel when in legal trouble. Sure, there was certainly rivalry and distrust between Boston’s Irish and Black communities, but not enough to necessarily choose a Protestant white Bostonian to represent them.
Moreover, there were not many Black or Irish attorneys in the early 1800s. There was only one Irish lawyer in Boston at the time, James Egan, who passed the bar in 1847.
But Morris’s connection ran deeper still. By the early 1850s, he and his family started attending Catholic services at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in South Boston. Those familiar with Boston are likely feeling a little shocked, as, by the 20th century, “Southie” developed into what many refer to as the most racist part of Boston.
A likely reader of the abolitionist paper, The Self Elevator, speaks to Morris’s sense, self-reliance, or elevation, being the theme of his day. As Morris’s mentee John S. Rock argued in February 1862, free Blacks “succeeded, in spite of every effort to crush them.”
They lived in “refutation of that shameless assertion that we ‘can’t take care of ourselves,’ in a state of freedom. Abject as our condition has been, our whole lives prove us superior to the influences that have been brought upon us to crush us.”
So, some nasty racism from an Irish immigrant would be fuel for success rather than a cause to capitulate.
Irish American Studies professor Lawrence J. McCaffrey wrote, “The Irish played a role in British history from 1800-1922 similar to that of the Negro in American history.” Historian Thomas N. Brown’s sentiment concurs: “songs and poems” penned by Irish immigrants equaled the “pathos … of the Negro.”
Despite that pathos, history has shown the road between Black and Irish communities throughout America has, in many instances, been riddled with potholes. The patchwork will be difficult but, on this St. Patrick’s Day, let’s reflect on mending this lost opportunity to unite.
Perhaps both sides need to have the tough skin of Robert Morris to make things work.