John Rock

Early life and education

John Stewart Rock was born to John and Maria (Willett) Rock, free African American parents, on October 13, 1825, in Salem, New Jersey. In Rock's formative years, it was relatively uncommon for white children to complete grammar school, and significantly rarer for Black children. Rock's parents, however, encouraged their diligent son in his studies and, despite having little financial resources, provided for him to follow through with formal schooling. By the age of 19, Rock had received the necessary amount of education to take up a position as a teacher.

Rock started out in 1844 in a one-room school in Salem, where he would continue to work for the next four years, garnering the attention and approval of veteran schoolteachers. Rock had an impressive work ethic, consistently holding class for six hours, conducting private tutoring sessions for two hours, and studying medicine under two white physicians, Dr. Shaw and Dr. Gibson, who allowed him to study their textbooks and use their personal book collections for eight hours daily.

Rock then decided to transfer into the field of dentistry and, after an 1849 apprenticeship with Dr. Harbert, a white dentist, opened a dental practice in Philadelphia in January 1850. Just one year later, he was rewarded with a silver medal for his expert work on a set of silver dentures that he crafted and later displayed.

Abolitionist Rock, a passionate abolitionist and civil rights leader, held a strong belief in the dignity and rights of all Americans. Like other abolitionists in the movement, such as George T. Downing and Robert Purvis, Rock became a renowned public speaker and campaigned for equal rights. He was a part of the National Equal Rights League with other famous abolitionists such as Henry Highland Garnet, Frederick Douglass, and John Mercer Langston. Rock's speeches soon began to receive positive public reviews, which led him to travel throughout New England and, occasionally, westward. In 1855, Rock took part in the campaign responsible for the legal desegregation of Boston public schools.

Rock's polished speeches were printed in William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator as well as in general newspapers, promoting these central ideas.

Lawyer Troubled by health-related problems, Rock applied for a United States passport to travel to Europe for his health, but Secretary of State Lewis Cass refused him one, as the United States Supreme Court had just declared in Dred Scott v. Sandford that a black man could not be a citizen of the United States. In spite of the 1856 law confining the authority to issue passports to the United States Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued Rock a passport describing him as a citizen of the commonwealth, and on the strength of this document he traveled to Europe. Rock went to Paris to seek the medical treatment of two leading French surgeons, Auguste Nelaton and Alfred Armand Velpeau. although he never argued a case before the Court. Rock was, however, the first Black person to be received on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.