Robert Morris was an African-American attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

. He was one of the first black lawyers in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He has been called "the first really successful colored lawyer in America."

Admitted to the Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 bar in 1847, Morris may have been the first black man to file a lawsuit

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

 in the U.S. (He prevailed.) He opened the first black law office in the United States with partner Macon Bolling Allen

Macon Bolling Allen

Macon Bolling Allen was an African American lawyer and abolitionist. He was the first African American licensed to practice law in the United States and the first Black American Justice of the Peace. Macon Bolling Allen was accepted to the bar in 1844 in Portland, Maine...

 (incidentally, the first black American lawyer).

He was active in black and abolitionist

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

 causes, notably filing and trying the first U.S. civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 challenge to segregated public schools in the 1848 case of Roberts v. Boston

Roberts v. Boston

Roberts v. Boston, 59 Mass. 198 , was a lawsuit seeking to end racial discrimination in Boston public schools. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of Boston, finding no constitutional basis for the suit. The case was later cited by the US Supreme Court in Plessy v...

. The case, pressed by Morris and Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...

, is believed to be the first legal challenge of the "separate but equal

Separate but equal

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law that justified systems of segregation. Under this doctrine, services, facilities and public accommodations were allowed to be separated by race, on the condition that the quality of each group's public facilities was to...

" practice in America. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The SJC has the distinction of being the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Western Hemisphere.-History:...

 ruled against Morris in 1850, a decision cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in support of its Plessy v. Ferguson

Plessy v. Ferguson

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses , under the doctrine of "separate but equal".The decision was handed...

 ruling in 1896, which codified the "separate but equal" standard. "Separate but equal" was ultimately overturned by the high court in Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...

 in 1954.

Morris was commissioned as a magistrate of Essex County, Massachusetts

Essex County, Massachusetts

-National protected areas:* Parker River National Wildlife Refuge* Salem Maritime National Historic Site* Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site* Thacher Island National Wildlife Refuge-Demographics:...

 by the governor, making him the second black lawyer to hold a judicial post. He ran for mayor of Chelsea, Massachusetts

Chelsea, Massachusetts

Chelsea is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States directly across the Mystic River from the city of Boston. It is the smallest city in Massachusetts in land area, and the 26th most densely populated incorporated place in the country.-History:...

in 1866.