What outspoken abolitionist and author of "An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World" was also the father of one of the first black men to pass the Massachusetts bar?
Edward G. Walker Edward Garrison Walker, also known as Edwin Garrison Walker (1830–1901), was an American artisan in Boston who became an attorney in 1861; he was one of the first black men to pass the Massachusetts bar. He later became a politician and in 1866, nine years after the state extended the franchise to African-American men, he and Charles Lewis Mitchell were the first two black men elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature. Walker was the son of Eliza and David Walker, an abolitionist who had written an appeal in 1829 calling for the end of slavery.
Philip Alexander Bell Philip Alexander Bell (1808-1886) was a 19th century American newspaper editor and abolitionist. Born in New York City, he made his first public speech at the 1832 Colored Convention, and was active in a variety of issues, including abolition, suffrage, and the protection of fugitives. As a young man, he worked for William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator. In 1837, he started the New York City newspaper "The Weekly Advocate" edited by Samuel Cornish, later renamed the "Colored American" and co-owned by Charles Bennett Ray. In 1860, he moved to San Francisco where he became co-editor of the African-American newspaper "The Pacific Appeal" and later, founder and editor of "The San Francisco Elevator" during the Reconstruction Era.