Standing on Broad Shoulders: the Lives and Legacy of Georgia's First Black Lawyers
| Publication year | 2023 |
| Pages | 0026 |
The distinction of being Georgia's first African American attorney belongs to Styles L. Hutchins—admitted to the Georgia Bar Association in 1878.
BY HON. JOHN G. BROWNING
Styles L. Hutchins, Georgia's first African American attorney, was admitted to the Georgia Bar Association in 1878.
The preeminent historian of Black lawyers in America, the late J. Clay Smith, once lamented that, in many states, their history is "uncertain."[1]Add the perspective that the account of their professional contribution is "overlooked" and "often inaccurate," and the description would be more complete. Unfortunately, the history of Black persons who overcame the legal profession's color barrier in Georgia could be fairly described as all of these, especially overlooked and sometimes wrong. For example, when the Augusta Chronicle memorialized the 1924 passing of Judson Lyons in a 2020 article, it described him as "Georgia's First African American lawyer."[2] In reality, that distinction belongs to attorney Styles Hutchins, whose 1878 admission to the Georgia Bar predated Lyons' admission in 1884 by more than six years.
Even "official" histories of Georgia's legal profession omit any mention of the state's Black legal pioneers, or worse attempt to whitewash history by denying their very existence. For example, the State Bar's own "From Banished to Justified: A History of the Legal Profession in Georgia" makes no mention of any Black lawyers in the decades following the Civil War. It even goes so far as to state that before 1892, "Georgia's legal profession during this period was made up entirely of white males."[3] Other histories of the Bar perpetuate this misconception.[4]
PHOTO COURTESY OF TENNESSEE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
For much of Georgia's early history, entry into the legal profession—as it was in most of the young republic—was not that daunting. By order of Georgia's General Assembly in 1789, an oral examination by a Superior Court judge and a demonstration of "moral rectitude" was sufficient for a law license. During the Civil War, new restrictions emerged; in addition to state citizenship and "good moral character," white male applicants were required to have "read law" (usually under the tutelage of an older lawyer or judge) for an unspecified period of time in order to be proficient enough to pass an oral examination that might draw upon pleading and evidence, equity, Anglo-American common law, the codes of the state and the Confederacy, and local rules of practice.[5] And although Black men would eventually integrate into the ranks of Georgia lawyers, resistance to women (of any color) becoming attorneys persisted for decades. During an 1894 symposium on "Requirements for Admission to the Bar," one speaker noted that Bar applicants, under the Code, had to be "of the male gender. Georgia is not yet ready to swap wifehood and motherhood even for female legal lore. The Georgia Code does not lend its influence to bring woman down from her present high estate."[6]
Indeed no woman would be admitted to practice in Georgia until 1916.
Aaron Alpeoria Bradley
The first attempts by trained Black lawyers to gain admission to practice in Georgia were unsuccessful. The first to try was noted activist and politician Aaron Alpeoria Bradley. Bradley, who was biracial, was born enslaved on a plantation owned by Francis Pickens in South Carolina in approximately 1815.[7]He escaped to Boston in the 1830s, where he received the support of abolitionists as well as an education. In 1856, after studying the law, Bradley became only the third Black lawyer admitted to practice in Massachusetts, and the fifth in the United States.[8] He moved to Savannah, Georgia, in 1865 and quickly became known for his vocal criticism of social injustices. Bradley was one of the first to call for reparations of both land and cash to Black Americans, and he spoke out against police brutality and perceived racism in the courts as well. Bradley went so far as to call for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson and to encourage former slaves to seize the property of their former white owners, and the latter efforts resulted in Bradley being charged with, convicted of and imprisoned for sedition.[9]
After serving a year at hard labor in the Fort Pulaski stockade, Bradley was undeterred in his quest to gain admission to the Bar. He applied for admission to practice before Georgia's U.S. District Court in 1867, but Judge John Ersking denied his application. Ersking based his decision on the belief that Bradley was inadequately grounded on the "first principles" of law, and also felt that he lacked "moral and mental qualifications."[10] But the real reason is likely found in Judge Ersking's other comments about Bradley, citing the activist's "impudence and egotism."[11] A defiant firebrand like Bradley who championed Black causes was the last person members of the establishment wanted to see with a law license. Bradley continued to seek admission to the Georgia Bar, and to publicly object to his repeated rejections. He was assailed in the press, which at one point made baseless allegations that Bradley had been disbarred in Boston for "malpractice."[12]
Unable to get a law license, Bradley turned his attention to politics. In 1868, he was elected to the state senate. After his public service (including an unsuccessful run for Congress) ended in 1870, Bradley went back to practicing law, albeit without a license. State authorities caught up with him in 1875. Bradley moved to Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1876, where he continued to practice law and promoted Black migration to Kansas. As late as 1881—not long before his death the following year—Aaron Bradley was still trying to get admitted to practice in Georgia courts, "but was refused" at every turn.[13]
Rev. James M. Simms
Oddly, Georgia had a Black judge before it had its first Black lawyer. During the Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1869, it was decided that judicial positions would be filled via appointment rather than through elections. With Black voters constituting a majority in multiple counties, this had the effect of almost certainly "eliminating the possibility that Blacks could be elected to the bench."[14] But in a surprising move, Gov. Rufus Bullock appointed Rev. James M. Simms to the judgeship of the First Senatorial District Court in 1871.[15] While Simms was an educated Black minister who had been elected to consecutive terms in the Georgia General Assembly in 1868, he was not trained as a lawyer. The mainstream white press vilified him, and he was not much more popular with local Republicans; in less than a year, he resigned from office.
Edwin Belcher
Reconstruction Georgia had another trained lawyer in Edwin Belcher, yet he never practiced law. Born enslaved to a white father and a Black mother, the light-skinned Belcher was sent to Philadelphia in his infancy to be raised by a white guardian. Belcher "passed" for white, was educated in white schools and even enlisted in a white regiment in the Union Army. But after the war, with political opportunities opening up for newly enfranchised Blacks, Belcher began identifying as Black and received an appointment as assessor of internal revenue for the Third District of Georgia.[16] With higher ambitions,[17] Belcher attended Howard University's new law school, which opened its doors in 1869, four years after the abolition of slavery and two years after a federal court empaneled a jury of black and white citizens.[18] In 1872, he was among Howard
Law's first graduates, and was soon admitted to the Bar of the District of Columbia. Belcher returned to Georgia, but instead of practicing law, he was appointed postmaster of Macon by President Ulysses S. Grant.
Styles Linton Hutchins
Georgia wouldn't witness a Black lawyer being admitted to its Bar until 1878, with the...
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