Edward G. Walker

Edward Garrison Walker (1830–1901), also Edwin Garrison Walker, was an artisan, lawyer, and political leader in Boston, a Massachusetts. He became an attorney in 1861 and was one of the first black men to pass the Massachusetts bar. In 1866 he and Charles Lewis Mitchell were the first two African Americans elected to the Massachusetts state legislature. Walker was the son of Eliza and David Walker, the militant abolitionist and author of An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.

Early life Edward Garrison Walker was born in Edgefield, South Carolina in 1830 to Eliza Walker, the widow of David Walker, who had died in early August 1830.#tag:ref|The Bench and Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts stated that Walker was born in 1835. If he was born in 1835, then David Walker would not have been his father, and this was two years after his mother's marriage to Alexander Dewson. Hinks says this is not likely, because Edwin would have been unlikely to have used the last name Walker if he was the son of Dewson. David had collapsed and died at the entrance to his store. He was a free black man from Wilmington, North Carolina who had settled in Boston about 1825, where he became a prominent abolitionist.

When Walker died, his widow Eliza was unable to keep up the annual payments of $266 ("a huge sum for Walker") made to George Parkman for the purchase of their home, and she lost it. In his pamphlet Appeal, Walker had earlier written: "But I must, really, observe that generally falls into the hands of some white persons. The wife and children of the deceased may weep and lament if they please, but the estate will be kept snug enough of its white possessor."

Eliza Butler Walker met Alexander Dewson, whom she married on September 19, 1833. He also had a son, Alexander, born about 1830, whom he brought to the family with her and her son Edward. They had a daughter, Margareta, who died at five months of age on April 11, 1837, of lung fever. Southac Street is not Phillips Street, located in Beacon Hill. Alexander Dewson died at the age of 46 of consumption (tuberculosis) on May 3, 1851. #tag:ref|The senior Alexander was posthumously bequeathed $1000 for the construction of a house from William H. Bordman, who died on June 15, 1872. Since Alexander had died by this time, there was a question about whether Eliza, son Edward and stepson Alexander were entitled to the inheritance. The second question was whether Alexander was entitled to the entire portion, or if it should be split three ways. The case – John D. Bates & another, administrator, vs. Alexander Dewson, and others – was presented to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. It was decided that Alexander's family should inherit the money and that it should be split equally between his widow Eliza and son Alexander. Hannah was born in Lowell on October 10, 1835, one of Henry and Lucinda Webster Van Vronker's three daughters. #tag:ref|The transcribed marriage record gives her last name as Van Kronker.

Lawyer Having been inspired by Blackstone's Commentaries, which he consulted while trying to free Minkins in 1851, Walker "read the law", serving as an apprentice at the Georgetown, Massachusetts office of Charles A. Tweed and John Q. A. Griffin. He also continued to run his leatherwork business. Both men were Republicans.

Construction in Back Bay (1870) with Commonwealth Avenue flanking the tree-lined Mall. On Tuesday, November 6, 1866, Claude August Crommelin remarked in his diary about the otherwise quiet election day: Only the election of two colored men as representatives in the state legislature made some noise here and gave sufficient matter for conversation, as this is the first election of its kind. Messrs. Mitchell and Walker are the first of the 'despised race' who are called to post such as this one. And that a combination of circumstances has caused that Mr. Walker is representing Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue makes the case even more special. In fact it was Mitchell who represented Boston's wealthy Beacon Street district, while Walker represented a district in Charlestown with a heavily Irish voting base.

As Walker and Mitchell began their one-year terms in the 1867 Massachusetts legislature, the era of post-Civil War Reconstruction was underway. Passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US Constitution had resulted in the abolition of slavery in 1865, granting full citizenship and protection of the law to freedmen in 1868, and granting suffrage to African-American men to vote and hold public office in 1870. At the same time, states were drafting laws to recognize the new status of freedmen. In the Massachusetts House, Walker opposed the 14th amendment, arguing that its language contained insufficient guarantees against race-based discrimination and disenfranchisement.

Walker's opposition to the language of the 14th Amendment was part of a larger breach with his fellow Massachusetts Republicans. They did not nominate him for a second term. He joined the Democratic Party, as one of many Boston African Americans to switch parties due to dissatisfaction with the Republicans.