Fredrick McGhee

McGhee, c. 1890s

Fredrick Lamar McGhee (October 28, 1861 – September 9, 1912) was a successful criminal defense lawyer in Minnesota and a civil rights activist prominent in the National Afro-American Council and the Niagara Movement. McGhee, born a slave in Mississippi, became the first black attorney in Minnesota, a supporter, then critic, of Booker T. Washington and a close ally of and collaborator with W. E. B. Du Bois.

McGhee was born near Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Abraham McGhee and Sarah Walker, who were slaves. His father, from Blount County, Tennessee, was literate, rare for a slave in those times, and later became a lay Baptist preacher. The McGhees escaped slavery from the John A. Walker farmer near Aberdeen with Union troops in 1864, and made their way to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Abraham McGhee had been enslaved as a younger man. Abraham McGhee died in 1873 and Sarah soon thereafter, leaving the young McGhee brothers orphans.

McGhee got a basic education in Freedman's schools and Knoxville College in Tennessee. As a teenager he followed his brothers to Chicago, where he started work as a porter, but within several years became a lawyer associated with Chicago's leading black lawyer of the time, Edward R. Morris. In 1886 McGhee married Mattie Crane, who was originally from Louisville. Later they had one adopted daughter, Ruth. In 1889 the McGhees moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he became the first black lawyer admitted to the bar in that state. He specialized in criminal defense and quickly became one of the most famous trial lawyers in the Twin Cities.

McGhee participated in every local and national civil rights movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He served as a national officer of the National Afro-American Council and organized its national meeting, held in St. Paul, in 1902. At that meeting Booker T. Washington took control of the Council, over McGhee's objections. McGhee broke with Washington and the Council in 1903, and was soon joined by W.E.B. DuBois. Together they founded the Niagara Movement, in 1905, the immediate predecessor of the NAACP, founded in 1909. McGhee served as its chief legal officer. In 1912 DuBois gave McGhee credit for creating the more radical entity, Niagara: "The honor of founding the organization belongs to F. L. McGhee, who first suggested it."

McGhee was active politically. He was chosen to be a presidential elector by the Minnesota Republican party in the spring of 1892, but after protests by Scandinavian Republicans, he was replaced before the start of the 1892 Republican National Convention, which was held in Minneapolis in June. Frustrated and offended, McGhee changed his allegiance to the Democratic Party in 1893, becoming one of the first nationally prominent black Democrats, and a supporter of William Jennings Brian at a time when nearly all blacks were Republicans. He remained an active Democrat the rest of his life. McGhee was also a harsh critic of American imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines.

After moving to St. Paul McGhee converted from Baptist Christianity to Catholicism at a time when the vast majority of African Americans were Protestants. With Archbishop John Ireland he joined in the founding of Saint Peter Claver, a Roman Catholic church and parish in St. Paul, Minnesota, and remained a faithful parishioner until his untimely death.

McGhee died in 1912, at age 50, of complications from a blood clot. He is buried, with his wife and daughter, in Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul.

See also[]

• List of first minority male lawyers and judges in Minnesota

References[]

• Nelson, Paul D. (2002). Fredrick L. McGhee: a life on the color line, 1861-1912. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 0-87351-425-4.
• The African American Registry: Fredrick McGhee, lawyer and activist [link accessed 2007-04-16]
• ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & artistic African-American Themes: Fredrick McGhee (1861-1912), Lawyer and Social Critic [link accessed 2007-04-16]
• Find Articles: Fredrick L. McGhee, who remains a relatively unknown civil rights pioneer, was courted by both Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois [link accessed 2007-04-16]
• McGhee, Fredrick (1861-1912), MNopedia.