Jonathan Jasper Wright: First Black Appellate Judge

Jonathan Jasper Wright grew up here in Springville, the son of a man who had escaped slavery, and he grew up to hold one of the most significant legal positions in American history.

Wright became the first Black lawyer admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. During Reconstruction he moved to South Carolina, where in eighteen seventy the legislature elected him to the South Carolina Supreme Court, making him the first African American to serve on a state supreme court in the United States.

Before his appointment, Wright had worked alongside Frederick Douglass advocating for Black suffrage and legal equality. His time on the bench lasted until eighteen seventy-seven, when the end of Reconstruction brought increasing political pressure. He left the court and returned to teaching, dying in eighteen eighty-five. His Springville boyhood home is remembered here, a long way from the court that made history.