Benjamin F. Roberts

Benjamin Franklin Roberts (September 4, 1815 – September 6, 1881) was an African-American printer, writer, activist and abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts, whose famous case on behalf of his daughter, Sarah Roberts v. Boston, resulted in a verdict that laid the foundation for "separate but equal", but was also cited in the landmark 1954 case Brown vs. Board of Education. Despite losing his case seeking access to schools near his home for his 5-year-old daughter at the Massachusetts Supreme Court, he was successful in 1855 bringing the issue to the state legislature.

Early life and ancestry

Benjamin F. Roberts was one of the 12 children of Sarah and Robert Roberts. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he was named after Benjamin Franklin and came from an impressive lineage of activists and writers through both his mother's and father's sides. His father was a servant to Nathaniel Appleton and Christopher Gore, then a stevedore, and wrote The House Servant's Directory in 1827, one of the first books written by an African American to be published. Roberts' grandfather on his mother's side, James Easton, protested segregation with demonstrations at church as early as 1800.

Roberts attended the Good Samaritan School in North Bridgewater as a boy and was very influenced by his grandfather, James, and his uncle, Hosea Easton. Roberts began his working life as a shoemaker's apprentice.

Roberts married Adeline Fowler in 1838. In April of that year, he established an abolitionist publication that would better represent black writers and their views called Anti-Slavery Herald.

After the close of the Anti-Slavery Herald, the Roberts family moved to the nearby town of Lynn, Massachusetts, and he continued his printing business. He printed the town's first directory in 1841, and printed other pamphlets, broadsides, and books. Of note is an expanded, one volume edition of the African and Native American author Robert Benjamin Lewis's book, Light and Truth. This was a re-emergence of Roberts's activism after the loss of his first paper.

Lawyer Robert Morris (the second African American lawyer in the country and the first to argue a jury trial) filed the case. When the case reached the Superior Court, Charles Sumner was brought on as co-counsel. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against them and upheld racial segregation in schools. In 1896, the case became the foundation for the "separate but equal" standard that resulted from Plessy v. Ferguson.

Later life

In 1853, Roberts again tried publishing a paper titled Self Elevator, but he was not successful.