Macon Bolling Allen
Born in 1816 in Indiana, Allen was not only the first African-American licensed to practice law in the United States, but he was also the first to hold a judicial post – a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County in Massachusetts. Having worked as a schoolteacher and a clerk before studying law, Allen would open a law office with two other African-American attorneys – William J. Whipper and Robert Brown. He would become involved in politics and become active in the Republican Party. By 1873, Allen was appointed a judge on the Inferior Court of Charleston. The following year, he was elected as a probate judge for Charleston County in South Carolina. After the Reconstruction period in the south, Allen relocated to Washington D.C. and worked as a lawyer for the Land and Improvement Association.
