Macon Bolling Allen

Macon Bolling Allen (born Allen Macon Bolling; August 4, 1816 – October 15, 1894) was an American attorney who is believed to be the first African American to become a lawyer and to argue before a jury, and the second to hold a judicial position in the United States. Allen passed the bar exam in Maine in 1844 and became a Massachusetts Justice of the Peace in 1847. He moved to South Carolina after the American Civil War to practice law and was elected as a judge in 1873 and again in 1876. Following the Reconstruction Era, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he continued practicing law.

Career

Becoming a lawyer Born in Indiana as A. Macon Bolling, he moved to New England at some point in the early 1840s and changed his name to Macon Bolling Allen in Boston in January 1844. Soon after, Allen moved to Portland, Maine and studied law, working as an apprentice to Samuel Fessenden, a local abolitionist and attorney. The Portland District Court rejected Fessenden's first motion to admit Allen to the bar in April 1844, concluding Allen did not meet the state's citizenship requirement (being a resident of Massachusetts at the time). Allen tried again, pursuing admission by examination, a method that did not require citizenship. He faced a hostile examination committee, which Fessenden thought did not want Allen admitted. Nevertheless, Fessenden said, "his qualifications were not denied." He experienced difficulty finding legal work in Maine, likely because white people were unwilling to hire a black attorney and few black people lived in Maine. Two died in childhood. The family spent some of their Massachusetts years in Dedham, where a deed shows property owned by “Emma L. Allen … wife of Macon B. Allen.”

After moving to South Carolina, Allen and Emma had another child. Emma died in 1870, along with another of the couple's children.

1847 Becomes a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County

1868 Moves to Charleston, South Carolina, where he joins the first known African American law firm

1873 Elected judge of Charleston County Criminal Court

1876 Elected probate judge in Charleston County

1894 Dies in Washington, D.C., on October 10