SCM to Posthumously Admit Lawyer Excluded Because of Race

By Chris J. Mincher

Except to occasionally cheer on a relative or law clerk crossing the threshold into lawyerdom, there’s usually not much reason to pay attention to the bar-admission special sessions at the Maryland Supreme Court — but don’t ignore a unique and important one coming up Thursday, October 26, 2023, at 3 p.m. That’s when the high court will consider the posthumous admission of Edward Garrison Draper, who is the earliest known individual found qualified to join the Maryland bar but rejected because of his race.

The session is the culmination of an effort to recognize Mr. Draper’s accomplishments and the historical injustice of his exclusion from Maryland’s legal profession. That was prompted by a compelling and informative University of Baltimore Law Forum article last year by Justice John G. Browning, formerly of the state Fifth District Court of Appeals in Texas.

In response, the Supreme Court invited Justice Browning, along with attorney Dominique A. Flowers and University of Baltimore law professor José F. Anderson, to submit a petition requesting Mr. Draper’s posthumous admission to the bar. I’ll briefly summarize the account of Mr. Draper as taken from Justice Browning’s article and the application for admission:

A law enacted in 1832 in Maryland declared that applicants for the bar were limited to free, white, male citizens at least 21 years old who had completed two years studying law. Into that world Mr. Draper was born in 1834, the son of Garrison Draper, a free Black man in Baltimore who had found success as a tobacconist and cigar maker.

The elder Mr. Draper had become interested in the recent movement to relocate the free Black population from the United States to a colony in Liberia; attracted to the idea of gaining rights abroad that were denied in this country, he even started an organization to develop information about the idea. This aligned him with the policy of the State government, which funded the Maryland State Colonization Society, a group that desired to establish a specific area of Liberia for free Blacks moving from Maryland (and more than a thousand people did just that).

Garrison Draper was invited to be a correspondent for the Society’s publication, the Maryland Colonization Journal, and he took to securing an education for Edward to prepare him for a life in Liberia. Edward went to school in Philadelphia, then entered Dartmouth College in 1851, graduating in 1855.

Edward developed an ambition to be the first lawyer in Liberia. He read law with Charles Gilman, an attorney who served on the Society’s managing board, and then later moved to Boston to study with Charles Storey, who along with his wife was a prominent abolitionist. (Mr. Storey’s son actually later served as secretary to pivotal figure Sen. Charles Sumner, helped found the NAACP, and became president of the ABA.)

Armed with this learning and experience, Edward on October 29, 1857, presented himself for examination for admission to the Maryland bar before Zaccheus Collins Lee, a judge on the Baltimore Superior Court, former U.S. Attorney for Maryland from 1848 to 1855, cousin to Robert E. Lee, and slave owner. Judge Lee was receptive — and impressed. After it was over, he found Edward “most intelligent,” “well informed,” and “qualified in all respects” to be admitted to the Maryland bar… except that he wasn’t white. Admission denied.

This example of shameful inequality soon turned to tragedy. As planned, Edward took his wife and made the trip to Liberia. However, within a year of landing in the capital of Monrovia, he died of tuberculosis. That his story was cut short so soon perhaps contributed to its being overlooked for so long.

That’s your short synopsis for blogging purposes, but it’s far from the full picture. Check out both Justice Browning’s article and the application for admission (links above) for a much more in-depth discussion of the story and its place in the larger framework of the civil rights movement and integration in Maryland. Then kick on the Supreme Court livestream on October 26 as a new chapter in that story is written.