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The town of Brownhelm, in Lorain County, likely elected the first black man to public office in the United States. The year was 1855, and the man elected township clerk was John Mercer Langston. It was one of many accomplishments in Langston’s lifetime battle against slavery and for racial equality. The child of white plantation owner Ralph Quarles and freed black slave Lucy Langston, John Mercer Langston was born in Virginia in 1829. When both parents died in 1834, the boy and his three older siblings received a large inheritance that would allow John Mercer to enroll at Ohio’s Oberlin College at age 14. Early on, he excelled at debate, and in 1848, when he was 19, he spoke at the National Black Convention in Cleveland to condemn those who would not help fugitive slaves. Because Ohio law did not allow blacks to be attorneys, Langston was denied admission to law school. Instead, he learned the law under attorney Philemon Bliss in Elyria. In 1854, he was accepted to the Ohio bar when the examiners decided he was white. Langston enjoyed a long, successful career as an Ohio lawyer, with mainly white clients. He organized antislavery societies at the state and national levels and helped runaway slaves along Ohio’s Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, he recruited black soldiers for the Union Army. After the war, he served as a city councilman in Oberlin, and traveled the Midwest giving speeches in support of voting rights for black men. In 1868, he organized the law department at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and in the late 1870s was named ambassador to the island nation of Haiti. In 1888, he became the first African American elected to the U.S. Congress from Virginia. His victory was contested, and it was 18 months before he could take his seat in the House of Representatives. He was defeated in the next election. Langston wrote his autobiography, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capital, in 1894, and died in Washington in 1897. The town of Langston, Okla., is named after him.
John Mercer Langston
Words to Know: inheritance excelled fugitive contested autobiography For Discussion: 1. John Mercer Langston was the first black American elected official. What elected position did he hold in Brownhelm, Ohio? 2. Why was Langston denied admission to law school? What finally allowed him to become a lawyer? Why could the examining committee make this decision? 3. Name two things Langston did to fight slavery. 4. Langston was a very successful lawyer, with mainly white clients. Can you name a reason he didn’t have many black clients in the 1850s and ’60s? 5. The people of Virginia also elected Langston. To what government body did they elect him?
Newspaper Activity: Find the classified ad section of your local newspaper. Look for the Help Wanted and Position Wanted ads. Imagine that you are John Mercer Langston. Mimicking the style of the classified ads, write an ad seeking new clients for your law office. Be sure to describe the job skills and personal characteristics that made Langston a good lawyer. “Ohio: The Inside Story” is produced through a grant from The Ohio Newspapers Foundation, a nonprofit charitable and educational organization affiliated with The Ohio Newspaper Association. This is one of a series of 24 Ohio profiles.
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The Newspapers In Education Mission – Our mission is to provide Miami, Shelby and neighboring county school districts with a weekly newspaper learning project that promotes reading and community journalism as a foundation for communication skills, utilizing the Piqua Daily Call, the Sidney Daily News, the Record Herald and the Troy Daily News as quality educational resource tools.
Thank you to our sponsors! The generous contributions of our sponsors and I-75 Group Newspapers vacation donors help us provide free newspapers to community classrooms as well as support NIE activities. To sponsor NIE or donate your newspaper while on vacation, contact NIE Coordinator Dana Wolfe at dwolfe@tdnpublishing.com or (937) 440-5211