A. Mercer Daniel

A. Mercer Daniel (May 27, 1887 – February 17, 1976) was an American law librarian and the first African American member of American Association of Law Libraries. He worked as a librarian for the United States Department of War, and later went on to serve as a librarian for the Howard University School of Law for more than thirty-five years. Daniel worked to oppose racial discrimination throughout his career and was an activist before and during the civil rights movement.

Early life and education

Allen Mercer Daniel was born in Rochester, New York, on May 27, 1887. Daniel was raised in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia; his parents were both alumni of Storer College and ran Lockwood House, a hotel and boarding house. He was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar and worked as a lawyer at the War Department for several years.

He married Portia Bird in 1910; they had one son, A. Mercer Daniel Jr. In 1924 he moved onto a permanent position as Assistant Librarian. He was a charter member of the D.C. AALL chapter, Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., when it was founded in 1939. The membership of AALL decided to hold the 1941 convention at the Chamberlin Hotel in Old Point Comfort, Virginia, which would not allow African Americans; Daniel was forced to miss attending his first conference since joining AALL in 1933. He served as the acting dean of the Howard University School of Law multiple times, including the summer of 1954. Daniel referred to the lynching as a "fiendish crime" and used the case to call for federal legislation against lynching and mob violence. These two laws were published in 1872 and 1873 and prohibited segregation in restaurants in D.C.; the laws were later found to be still in effect despite not being included in D.C.'s 1901 legal code, and were used by the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C Anti-Discrimination Laws to force a legal end to discrimination in Washington.

Retirement and death

After retiring from Howard University and being named Librarian Emeritus in 1956, Daniel continued his scholarship, including book reviews and other commentary in journals such as the Journal of Negro History and Howard Law Journal. He was considered a scholar on abolitionist John Brown and wrote about Brown's raid and other aspects of the history of Harper's Ferry, where he grew up.

Daniel died February 17, 1976, in Washington, D.C.

Legacy

In October 1971, Howard University's law library was renamed the Allen Mercer Daniel Law Library. During his time at Howard, Daniel developed a relationship with student Thurgood Marshall, who assisted in the efforts to create Howard Law School's first library card catalog in 1933; Marshall attended and spoke at the dedication ceremony.

In 2010 Daniel was inducted into the inaugural class of the American Association of Law Libraries Hall of Fame.