Fredrick McGhee

Fredrick Lamar McGhee (October 28, 1861 – September 9, 1912) was an African-American criminal defense lawyer and civil rights activist. Born a slave in Mississippi, McGhee would become the first black attorney in Minnesota. Alongside close friend and collaborator of W. E. B. Du Bois, McGhee would leave the National Afro-American Council to help co-found the Niagara Movement.

McGhee has been noted as one of the first prominent Black supporters of the Democratic Party at a time when Black voters overwhelmingly supported the Republican Party. McGhee was a vocal supporter of William Jennings Bryan in the 1900 presidential election, and spoke out against Republican William McKinley's support for imperialism. McGhee is also noted for being a convert to Catholicism in a time when African Americans were overwhelmingly Protestant.

McGhee was born near Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Abraham McGhee and Sarah Walker, who were enslaved. His father, from Blount County, Tennessee, was literate, rare for an enslaved person in those times, and later became a lay Baptist preacher. The McGhees escaped slavery from the John A. Walker farmer near Aberdeen with Union troops in 1864, and made their way to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Abraham McGhee had been enslaved as a younger man.

Abraham McGhee died in 1873 and Sarah soon thereafter, leaving the young McGhee brothers orphans. McGhee got a basic education in Freedman's schools, and received his legal education at Knoxville College, graduating in 1885.

As a teenager he followed his brothers to Chicago, where he started work as a porter, but within several years became a lawyer associated with Chicago's leading black lawyer of the time, Edward H. Morris.

In 1886 McGhee married Mattie Crane, who was originally from Louisville. Later they had one adopted daughter, Ruth. In 1889 the McGhees moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he became the first black lawyer admitted to the bar in that state. He specialized in criminal defense and quickly became one of the most famous trial lawyers in the Twin Cities. As an attorney, McGhee successfully won clemency from President Benjamin Harrison for Lewis Carter, a Black soldier who had been falsely accused of a crime.

McGhee participated in every local and national civil rights movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He served as a national officer of the National Afro-American Council and organized its national meeting, held in St. Paul, in 1902. At that meeting Booker T. Washington took control of the Council, over McGhee's objections. McGhee broke with Washington and the Council in 1903, and was soon joined by W.E.B. DuBois.

In response, McGhee would join Du Bois in founding the Niagara Movement, in 1905. The Niagara Movement was immediate predecessor of the NAACP, which was founded in 1909. McGhee served as its chief legal officer. In 1912, DuBois gave McGhee credit for creating the Niagara Movement, stating: