Born free in Indiana in 1816, Macon Bolling Allen taught himself to read and write and worked as a schoolteacher before moving to Portland, Maine, where he became a law clerk and apprentice to the abolitionist attorney General Samuel Fessenden.
When Allen sought admission to the Maine bar, he was initially refused on the grounds that Black people were not considered citizens. He instead pursued admission by examination, a route that did not require citizenship, and passed despite a hostile examining committee — earning his license to practice law on July 3, 1844, and becoming the first African American licensed to practice law in the United States.
Struggling to find clients in Maine, Allen moved to Boston, walking over fifty miles to sit the Massachusetts bar exam, which he also passed. In 1848 he became the first African American to hold a judicial position in the country, serving as a Justice of the Peace in Middlesex County. After the Civil War he relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, co-founding one of the first Black law firms in America and later serving as a judge.
- First African American licensed to practice law in the United States
- First African American to argue a case before a jury
- First African American to hold a judicial position in the United States
- Co-founded one of the earliest African American law firms
- Served as a judge in South Carolina during Reconstruction
- Find the path around, not just through.. When direct admission was refused, Allen pursued a different legal route to the same qualification.
- Persistence outlasts hostility.. He faced a deliberately hostile examination panel and passed anyway.
- Go where the work is.. Struggling for clients in Maine, he moved rather than give up on practising law.
- Build institutions, not just careers.. His law firm and judicial appointments created lasting infrastructure for others to follow.