John Patterson Green

John Patterson Green (April 2, 1845 – September 1, 1940) was an African-American attorney, politician, public servant, and writer. He was among the first African Americans to hold public office in Cleveland, Ohio. A Republican, he was elected as a Justice of the Peace in 1873. He served in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1882. In 1891, he was elected to the Ohio Senate, the first African American state senator in Ohio. Green introduced the legislation that established Labor Day in Ohio as a state holiday.

Early life and education Green was born in New Bern, North Carolina, to John Rice Green and Temperance Dirden Green, who were both free persons of color of mixed ancestry. Greene's father was a tailor and his mother was a seamstress. At the age of five, Green and his two sisters were left to the care of their mother when their father died in 1850. Unable to sufficiently provide for her children in North Carolina, Green's mother in 1857 decided to relocate to Cleveland, Ohio, which promised greater educational and economic opportunities. In Cleveland, liberal white community leaders mostly of New England origin encouraged tolerance, racial fairness, and integration even during the antebellum times. In 1865, the Cleveland Leader wrote that, "an indication of the civilized spirit of the city of Cleveland is found in the fact that colored children attend our schools, colored people are permitted to attend all public lectures and public affairs where the fashion and culture of the city congregate, and nobody is offended." He sold near 1,500 copies in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Green completed a four-year classical program at Cleveland Central Catholic High School in two years.

Career Looking for a place to establish a successful legal practice, Green moved with his family, first, to North Carolina, and then, to Bennettsville, South Carolina, where he stayed from 1870 to 1872. On September 20, 1870, Green passed the South Carolina bar and started to practice criminal law. In 1872, Green was elected a delegate to the South Carolina Republican convention where he became an alternate delegate to the National Republican Convention.

In the Fall of 1872, Green returned to Cleveland where he was elected as a Justice of the Peace for Cuyahoga County, Ohio by a majority of 3,000 votes; he served three terms deciding close to 12,000 cases.

In 1877, he lost a highly contested election to the Ohio House of Representatives by sixty two votes. In 1881 Green ran again, and this time he won. He lost in 1883, but won in 1889. In 1890, he sponsored legislation introducing Labor Day in Ohio as a state holiday. In 1891, Green was elected to the Ohio Senate by mostly white voters. He supported state funding for Wilberforce University, an institution affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and helped to defeat attempts to allow local school districts to practice racial segregation.

Being a loyal Republican, Green, as a traveling speaker, took an active part in William McKinley's presidential campaign of 1896. His efforts were appreciated and in 1897 he was awarded with a newly created position of U.S. Postage Stamp Agent in Washington, D.C., with an annual salary of 2,500, serving in 1897–1905. In 1897, in a notable case, Green defended in Charleston, West Virginia a black servant who acted in self-defense, but was charged with assault.

In 1928, Green addressed the Republican National Convention in Chicago asking black voters to support the Republican party. Green is buried in Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Green was a founding member of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Cleveland.

Family Green married Annie Laura Walker Green after graduation from high school in 1869. Four of their children lived to adulthood: William R. Green (1873-), who became Cleveland NAACP President, Theodore B. Green (1877–1917), Jessie Bishop Green (1880–1963) and Clara Green. After his wife died in January 1912, he married a widow, Lottie Mitchell Richardson, in September 1912, they had two children. He is the great nephew of John Carruthers Stanly.

Legacy The Cleveland Leader characterized Green in 1902 as a self-made man. he was dubbed, Ohio's Father of Labor Day. After Labor Day was adopted as a national, legal holiday in 1894, he sometimes referred to as the Father of Labor Day. In 1968, W. Willard Wirtz declared that official position of the United States Department of Labor was to credit Matthew Maguire, a machinist from the Knights of Labor, with proposing the Labor Day in 1882.

In 1937, in recognition of his service to the people of Cleveland, 4 April was designated as "John P. Green Day" by the mayor and city council of Cleveland.

Works Miscellaneous Subjects by a Self-Educated Colored Youth. Cleveland, 1866. Recollections of the Inhabitants, Localities, Superstitions, and KuKlux Outrages of the Carolinas. By a "Carpet-Bagger" Who Was Born and Lived There. Cleveland, 1880. Fact Stranger Than Fiction: Seventy-five Years of a Busy Life, with Reminiscences, of Many Great and Good Men and Women. Cleveland: Riehl Printing Co, 1920.