John H. Murphy Sr.

John Henry Murphy Sr. (25 December 1840 – 5 April 1922)

Early life and military service John Henry Murphy was born into slavery in Baltimore, Maryland on Christmas Day 1840. His parents were Benjamin Murphy III, who was a whitewasher, and his wife, Susan Colby (or Coby (Only whites were allowed to be commissioned officers at the time.)

Little is known about young Murphy before his service in the American Civil War. He was among the more than 8,000 Black Marylanders and other states' residents who mustered into various Black regiments throughout the State of Maryland, after 1863 and emancipation, when the Federal Government decided to accept black recruits in the Army. President Abraham Lincoln announced the "Emancipation Proclamation" in September 1862, giving freedom to all slaves still held within then rebelling Confederate States, and taking effect on New Year's Day, January 1, 1863. Afterward, the U.S. War Department and state militia officials actively recruited freedmen, free men of color, and fugitive slaves into the Union Army in the U.S.C.T., to serve along with the previous recruited units of various Northern states, such as the famous 54th Massachusetts Regiment.

Post-war years

Marriage and family In 1868, Murphy married Martha Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of the well-to-do African-American farmer, Enoch George Howard of Montgomery County, Maryland, who was a free man of color before the war. They met in church. Murphy and his wife Martha settled in Baltimore and had 11 children together; 10 of them survived to adulthood. Among them was their son Carl J. Murphy, who began to work formally with his father on the paper in 1918.

Due to the economic and political power of blacks in Baltimore, who comprised a large community, and the activism of people like Murphy, the Maryland state legislature did not follow the example of other southern states and disenfranchise black voters at the turn of the century. African Americans struggled with discrimination in the city but maintained more freedom and political power than blacks in most other southern states.

His son Carl Murphy, by then having a doctorate from the University of Jena in Germany and serving as head of the German department at Howard University, returned to Baltimore in 1918 to work on the paper in his father's last years.

Death and Murphy Family Legacy Murphy died at the age of 81, at home, on April 5, 1922 of acute nephritis. He was interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery. His son, Carl J. Murphy was named as editor and publisher of the paper and went on to lead it for 45 years. Murphy's descendants continued to lead the newspaper over the course of the next generations, with his granddaughter Francis L. Murphy leading the paper in the 1970s, and his grandson and namesake, John H. Murphy, III leading the paper in the 1970s and 1980s.

Legacy and honors

2008, Murphy was named posthumously to the Hall of Fame, Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association, established in 1947.