BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN JUDGES :THE INTEGRATION OF THE FEDRAL JUDICIARY :

The integration of African American into Federal Judiciary represents a significant achievement for social equality and the Law. As a result of the strides made by numerous pioneering African American, some descendents of slaves now serve as arbiters of a legal system that had once denied their ancestors fundamental legal rights to life, liberty, and property. One such legal pioneer was Macon B. Allen the first African American acknowledged to have gained admission to a State Bar when he passed the examination for the Maine Bar in 1844. Allen learned the law as almost all aspiring Lawyers did in this period, he read it in the office of a beneficent private Attorney while working as this Attorneys Clerks.

 A year later Allen would later gain admission to the Massachusetts Bar. Three years after Allen entered the Maine Bar, the Governor of Massachusetts appointed him a Justice of the Peace making Allen the first African American to serve in any Judicial capacity. Robert Morris became the second African American Judge  when the Governor of Massachusetts appointed him to a County Magistrate position a more formal Judicial position than Justice of The Peace this was in 1882. Significantly most African American were still slaves during this period and many people resisted the notion of African American as free citizens - much less as Lawyers and Judges. From these humble beginning  Allan and Morris achievement  was just the start of what was to come.