LOVELAND, OHIO - BLACK HISTORY MONTH - 1865- John Rock becomes the first African American lawyer admitted to practice before the Untied States Supreme Court. His admittance is moved by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presides. Also, the first Black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives.
John S. Rock (1825 - 1866) (Bio from the National Park Service) http://www.nps.gov/boaf/timeline.htm
During the nineteenth century, Boston produced many Black activists committed to the fight for freedom and dignity of all Americans, regardless of race. None of these activists, however, illustrates the brilliance of Black political and social struggles more than John Swett Rock. In just forty-one years of life, Rock accomplished more than most people accomplish in an entire lifetime, becoming a doctor, a dentist, and a lawyer at a time when Black men were still enslaved by the millions in the south. His achievements as an activist and as a Black professional are indicative of the power and strength of Black freedom fighters in nineteenth century Boston.
John Swett Rock was born October 13, 1825, in Salem county, New Jersey. From an early age, his parents noticed his prodigal intelligence and were extremely impressed with his insatiable appetite for learning. Although they were poor, his parents committed themselves to sending John to school until the age of eighteen, something that was rare for most poor Americans, regardless of race. At eighteen, John Swett Rock began to teach at the all-Black public elementary school in Salem, a position he held from 1844 until 1848. As the school flourished under his leadership, Rock began studying medicine through the libraries and private tutelage of white doctors Quinton Gibbon and Jacob Sharpe. He eventually received an apprenticeship with an area white physician, but was prevented from attending any medical college because of his race. Frustrated but undaunted, Rock turned his attention to dentistry. He studied under Dr. Samuel C. Harbert and read, from cover to cover, Harbert's A Practical Treatise on the Operations of Dental Surgery and Mechanical Dentistry, which would eventually become a standard reference within the profession until the end of the nineteenth century. Certified as a dentist in 1849, he moved to Philadelphia in 1850 and opened up a private practice.
It was in Philadelphia that John Rock found an outlet for his passion for freedom and racial justice. While studying dentistry, he had been asked to speak before the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and had been inspired by the commitment of White and Black activists to abolitionist principles. He began to publish articles in various Philadelphia newspapers urging not only for the abolition of slavery in the south, but also for the enfranchisement of African-Americans in northern states like New Jersey, where Blacks did not receive the right to vote until 1875. By 1852, he was married to Philadelphia native Catherine Bowers and had received a medical degree from the American Medical College. In 1853, he and his wife moved to Boston, long thought of as a city at the center of abolitionism and racial equality.
John Rock arrived in Boston with his stake already set in the Black activist community of Beacon Hill. While writing and lecturing in Philadelphia, he had become well known in Boston abolitionist circles as a man of intellectual brilliance, professional achievement, and racial militancy. In addition, upon opening his dental and medical practice at 83 Phillips Street, Rock became a member of the small yet powerful Black upper class, forming partnerships with contemporaries like Lewis Hayden, Joshua B. Smith, and Leonard Grimes. By the end of his first year in Boston, Rock had become a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, for which he served as doctor, administering free medical services to fugitive slaves. In 1855, he both served as one of Boston's representatives to the Colored National Convention, and sponsored the community dinner in honor of William C. Nell and the integration of Boston public schools.
As a political lecturer and abolitionist speaker, Rock emphasized Black self-determination, the importance of education, and the inherent beauty of the African race and its cultures. In 1856, he petitioned the Board of Mayors and Aldermen in Massachusetts to delete the word "colored" from all voter lists and tax bills. That same year he gave a lecture before the Massachusetts Legislature entitled Unity of the Human Race. In this lecture, for which he received rave reviews from local newspapers, Rock linked the struggle for Black freedom to a holy crusade for human salvation, stating, "our course is of God and cannot be overthrown." In 1857, at a dedication of a Masonic Temple in Philadelphia, Rock gave his most famous speech, "The Light and Shadows of Ancient and Modern Tribes of Africa", in which he stated "wherever the colored man is elevated it will be by his own exertions." The following year, in 1858, at Boston's annual Crispus Attucks Celebration, Rock became the first Black activist to publicly acknowledged pride in himself and his race when he stated "Black is beautiful." This was a sentiment that would not resound in the hearts and minds of Boston Blacks until the Black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1858, with ill health that could not be remedied by area physicians, John Rock traveled to Paris for medical treatment at the renowned Academie Francais. It was a trip that incited controversy, for it occurred at a time when the U.S. Secretary of state Lewis Cass had ruled that Black Americans could not receive passports because they did not possess United States citizenship status. With his political colleague, Sen. Charles Sumner, Rock forced the Massachusetts legislature to pass a law granting the state the right to issue passports to Black citizens. With his passport, Rock was treated by some of the most renowned Parisian doctors who informed him that his delicate health would prevent him from practicing medicine. He returned to Boston in 1859 and closed down his profitable dental and medical practice. He began studying law, however, and by 1861 (the year he passed the bar) he was commissioned by Governor John Andrew to become justice of the peace for Boston. He also opened up his own law practice at number 6 Tremont street, an office frequented by abolitionist politicians like Charles Sumner and John Andrew.
Throughout the Civil War, Rock not only practiced law and served as justice of the peace, he also continued to work for Black equality with activists like Frederick Douglass and Lewis Hayden. Together, these activists petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature to form a Black military company and helped recruit Black soldiers for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment in 1863. It was in 1865, however, that John Rock received the highest honor of his career. That year, he became the first Black man in history to be admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court. When he was received by the House of Representatives in D.C., Rock become the first Black lawyer to be introduced at a session of Congress. It would be the last triumphant act in a life overflowing with achievement, for Rock died suddenly on December 3, 1866. He was interred at the Twelfth Baptist Church and buried with full Masonic honors at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, MA.
Throughout his short lifetime - and his even shorter time in Boston - John S. Rock became a community leader, a social activist, a respected orator, and an influential member of the Black upper class. With his dental, medical, and law degrees, through his endorsement of Black capitalism, in his devotion to radical abolitionist causes - in whatever way he supported the cause of American liberty, John Swett Rock managed to be the kind of Black activist who successfully combined his intellectual brilliance and economic success with militant social action and racial pride. As he stated: "the colored man who by dint of perseverance and industry, educates and elevates himself, prepares the way for others, gives character to the race and hastens the day of general emancipation."
Sources:
Buzby, J, Harlan. "John S. Rock, D.S., M.D., Esq. 1825-1866 Teacher, Healer, Counselor" in Salem County History Society Newsletter March 1996 vol. XLI, issue I.
Horton, James and Lois Horton. Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1999.
Jacobs, Donald M., ed. Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993.
