Isaac Lawrence Purcell
Isaac Lawrence Purcell (born July 17, 1857) was an American lawyer.[1][2][3] Booker T. Washington noted he was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court and had cases before it.[4] He worked in Jacksonville, Florida.
He was born in Winnsboro, South Carolina. His father John W. Purcell was a carpenter. He studied at the University of South Carolina after it was desegregated but was excluded after segregation was restored and studied the law privately in Palatka, Florida. He was an active Republican and attended party conventions.[2]
He and attorney J. Douglas Wetmore challenged the law segregating streetcars in Florida as unconstitutional. The Avery Law was invalidated. It was one of the only wins against segregation laws during the Jim Crow era and attempts to expand its reach were not successful as the same court ruled that there was equality in other instances of segregation where blacks served blacks and white served whites.[5] He represented the Union Aid Association of America.[6]
Wetmore moved to New York City in the wake of the trials and eventually committed suicide.[7][8]
References[edit]
- ^ Culp, Daniel Wallace (May 30, 1902). Twentieth Century Negro Literature: Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro. J.L. Nichols & Company. ISBN 9780598621122 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Twentieth Century Negro Literature: Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro. J.L. Nichols & Company. 1902. ISBN 9780598621122.
- ^ Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1999. ISBN 9780812216851.
- ^ The Negro in Business. Hertel, Jenkins & Company. 1907.
- ^ Defining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880-1915. Oxford University Press. June 2015. ISBN 978-0-19-023524-6.
- ^ Report of the Attorney General of the State of Florida. Capital Publishing Company, State printer. 1907.
- ^ Johnson, James Weldon (April 4, 2016). The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (International Student Edition) (Norton Critical Editions). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393614633 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Obituary for Judson Douglas Wetmore". The New York Age. 2 August 1930. p. 1.
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