Unheralded Black Legal Pioneer to Get His Due, 166 Years Late

Maryland’s Supreme Court is set to take a step toward rectifying the state’s racist past, recognizing that Edward Garrison Draper should have been the state’s first Black lawyer when he applied in 1857.

Draper will be posthumously admitted to the state bar in a special session in Annapolis on Oct. 26 — 166 years after a judge in Baltimore said he was qualified in all respects to practice in Maryland except for a statute limiting the profession to White citizens. Draper instead moved to a colony in Liberia, with plans to pursue a career denied to him in the state ...