Robert Morris was born free in Salem, Massachusetts, to York and Mercy Morris. At 15 he began working as a servant in the home of Boston abolitionist Ellis Gray Loring, who recognised his talent and mentored him into the study of law. Morris passed the Massachusetts bar in 1847 at age 25 — the second Black person admitted to any American bar, and the first to practise law actively in the state.
In 1848, with only a year of experience, Morris filed suit against the City of Boston on behalf of five-year-old Sarah Roberts, who had been forced to walk past five white schools to reach the segregated school for Black children. Co-arguing the appeal with Charles Sumner in Roberts v. City of Boston, Morris became the first African American to argue before an appellate court in the country. Though the court ruled against them in 1850, sustained pressure led the Massachusetts legislature to abolish school segregation statewide in 1855.
Morris went on to defend fugitives from slavery, became a trusted criminal defence lawyer within Boston's Irish immigrant community — earning the nickname "the Irish Lawyer" — and was appointed a magistrate in Essex County, becoming the second Black lawyer in the country to hold a judicial post.
- Second Black lawyer admitted to any American bar, 1847
- First Black American to argue before an appellate court in U.S. history
- Filed Roberts v. City of Boston, the first legal challenge to school segregation in America
- Appointed magistrate of Essex County, Massachusetts
- A lost case can still win the argument, decades later.. His 1850 arguments in Roberts v. Boston were echoed by the Brown v. Board lawyers in 1954.
- Build trust across communities, not just within your own.. He became a defender of Irish immigrants as well as Black Bostonians.
- Take the case in year one of your career if it needs taking.. He filed Roberts v. Boston with barely a year's experience at the bar.