National Grand Ruler, Joseph P. Evans, Baltimore, Md.
Vice Grand Ruler, G. W. V. Grey, Norfolk, Va.
Grand Treasurer, J. F. Henry, Cambridge, Md.
ORDER OF TENTS
Supreme Matron, Mrs. C. A. Gilpin, Richmond, Va.
Deputy Matron, Mrs. A. J. Valentine, Chester, Pa.
Grand Secretary, Miss Adeline M. Ward, Norfolk, Va.
(Extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 457-8-9-60).
AMONG THE LAWYERS
A Lawyer in Time Saves Many a Dime.
A timely “Eagle” ’tis better to pay
To “Blackstone’s” grads, who know the say
About strange deals you plan to pave,
And also your cash you want to save.
—Harrison.
A. B. MACON was the first Negro in the United States to be admitted before the bar to practice law, which occured in Massachusetts in 1845. Since he thus blazed such a path through the law fields of America, Colored men and women have continued to follow that pathway until today there are about one thousand Colored lawyers practicing in different parts of the United States. And they are making splendid records before judge benches and jury boxes by legally understanding, plainly interpreting, and loyally defending the laws of this land.
When Miss Charlotte Ray, as the first Colored woman lawyer in America, graduated from Howard University in 1872, she was fully justified in lightly and nimbly stepping off the campus of her Alma Mata with her heart excitedly beating in her eagerness to at once secure a case and descend upon some court room where she could try out her logical, convincing and persuasive pleadings.
Since Miss Ray’s graduation as a lawyer, it is found that while many, say twenty-five or thirty Colored women in the United States have up to the present time secured their degree of LL. B., few of them are today engaged in active law practice. Among this number the writer has only been able to locate the following who are today practicing law in this country: Attorneys Violette N. Anderson, Chicago, Ill., Carolyn Hall Mason and Marie Nadras, Washington, D.C. and Mrs. Jessica Morris, wife of Edward H. Morris, the foremost practicing Colored attorney in Chicago, is a graduate of the 1920 law class of Northwestern University and during the month of July 1921 successfully passed her State Bar Examination. At this writing she had not taken up active practice. Attorney Violette N. Anderson, 145 No. Clark Street, Chicago, Ill., is very anxious and has for quite a while been trying to locate and get into communication with every Colored woman lawyer in the United States, in order to form a National Association.