George Boyer Vashon (July 25, 1824 – October 5, 1878) was an
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
scholar, poet, lawyer, and
abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
.
Biography
George Boyer Vashon was born in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the third child and only son of an abolitionist, John Bethune Vashon (or John Bathan Vashon).
In 1840, at age 16, he enrolled in
Oberlin Collegiate Institute
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher ...
(later Oberlin College), and in 1844 he became its first African-American graduate, and the
valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution.
The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...
of his class.
Vashon was the first practicing African-American lawyer in New York State, but was denied the right to practice in Pennsylvania because of his "race", first in 1847 and again in 1868.
According to Judge
Thomas Mellon
Thomas Mellon (February 3, 1813 – February 3, 1908) was an American entrepreneur, lawyer, and judge, best known as the founder of Mellon Bank and patriarch of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh.
Early life
Mellon was born to farmers Andrew Mell ...
, "The teachings of history and physiology clearly establish the fact that social equality and connection between the races in the domestic relations can only be productive of evil—shortening life and weakening the physical and mental condition, as a general rule." He proposed that there be a separate territory for Blacks in the United States where they could vote, practice law, and serve on juries, but not in Pennsylvania.
Using the same credentials, Vashon was the following week admitted to practice before the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
In 1853, he was a prominent attendee of the radical abolitionist
National African American Convention in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
. His was one of five names attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, ''The Claims of Our Common Cause'', along with
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
,
James Monroe Whitfield,
Henry O. Wagoner, and
Amos Noë Freeman. In 1853 he joined the faculty of
New York Central College, near
Cortland, New York, as a replacement for exiled
William G. Allen. In 1857, he married
Susan Paul Vashon.
In the 1870s he lived and worked for a time in Washington, D.C., where he also taught young African Americans at a night school there.
Vashon High School
Vashon High School is a high school of the St. Louis Public Schools in St. Louis, Missouri. When it opened in 1927, it was the second high school for black students in St. Louis.
History
Designed by Rockwell M. Milligan, the school opened on Sep ...
, in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, is named for Vashon and his son, John Boyer Vashon.
In 2010, 163 years after he applied, the
Pennsylvania Bar admitted him.
See also
*
List of first minority male lawyers and judges in New York
This is a list of the first minority male lawyer(s) and judge(s) in New York. It includes the year in which the men were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are other distinctions such as the first minority men in their state ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
Picture of Vashon, property of McGraw Historical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vashon, George Boyer
1824 births
1878 deaths
Oberlin College alumni
19th-century African-American academics
New York Central College faculty
African-American abolitionists
People from Washington, D.C.
People from Carlisle, Pennsylvania
African-American college graduates before 1865
19th-century American lawyers
African-American lawyers
New York (state) lawyers
Pennsylvania lawyers
Racial segregation