Fredrick McGhee

Who was Fredrick McGhee?

Fredrick L. McGhee, a black civil rights activist and one of America’s first African American lawyers. McGhee, born as a slave but who later was able to achieve a substantial career as an attorney and become one of the civil rights pioneers, was a contemporary of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois.

McGhee was born in Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Abraham McGhee and Sarah Walker, who were slaves. His father, from Blount County, Tennessee, was a literate black slave who learned how to read and write without being formally educated, and later became a Baptist preacher. Abraham McGhee taught his three children, Mathew, Barclay and Fredrick, how to read and write. Abraham McGhee died in 1873 and soon Fredrick’s mother died leaving her three sons orphans.

McGhee was able to attend Knoxville College in Tennessee, and graduated with a degree in law in 1885. Although he began his legal career in Chicago, McGhee settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he became the first black lawyer admitted to the bar in that state. With a much smaller black population from which to attract clients, McGhee primarily represented whites, gaining a reputation for competence and oratory.