George Boyer Vashon

George Boyer Vashon (July 25, 1824 – October 5, 1878) was an American lawyer, scholar, educator, essayist, poet, and abolitionist. Vashon was the first practicing African American lawyer in New York State. The second of three siblings, Vashon was the younger brother of the journalist and abolitionist Mary Frances Vashon. and the valedictorian of his class.

Vashon's graduation from Oberlin was not only a personal triumph, but also an important step for the anti-slavery movement. Oberlin had welcomed and attracted black American students. It was a key initiative of the anti-slavery movement - to prepare for final emancipation. Before Vashon a few black American students had enrolled in Oberlin but dropped out. Nearly ten years went by between the founding of Oberlin and Vashon's graduation. His graduation was a relief. Vashon's early education in Pittsburgh was provided in part by Rev. Lewis Woodson, who also taught Martin Delany. Delany lived with the Vashon family for a time. The second Oberlin graduate was John Mercer Langston, who lived for a time in his youth in Cincinnati with one of Lewis Woodson's brothers. Vashon mentored Langston. In all 23 black Americans graduated from Oberlin College before the Civil War.

Career Vashon was the first practicing African-American lawyer in New York State, but was denied the right to practice in Pennsylvania because of his "race", first in 1847 and again in 1868.

Using the same credentials, Vashon was the following week admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1853, he was a prominent attendee of the radical abolitionist National African American Convention in Rochester, New York. His was one of five names attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, The Claims of Our Common Cause, along with Frederick Douglass, James Monroe Whitfield, Henry O. Wagoner, and Amos Noë Freeman. In 1853 he joined the faculty of New York Central College, near Cortland, New York, as a replacement for exiled William G. Allen. In the 1870s he lived and worked for a time in Washington, D.C., where he also taught young African Americans at a night school there.

Personal life In 1857, Vashon married Susan Paul Vashon, an educator, abolitionist and clubwoman. The couple had seven children.

Vashon died during the Mississippi Valley yellow fever epidemic on October 5, 1878.