Robert Morris: Lawyer and Activist

Boston College's Law Library has an exciting website up about Robert Morris, one of the first African American lawyers in the United States.  He argued Roberts v. City of Boston, arguing in favor of integration of the Boston public schools.  This is built around Morris' library -- and it reignites my interest in the use of books to reconstruct the ideas, particularly of pre-Civil War Americans.  For instance, Morris had a copy of David Walker's Appeal in his library -- and he was a mentor to Walker's son, who became a lawyer.  It has Morris' copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp; and maybe most exciting it has Morris' copy of R. B. Lewis' Light and Truth, a response to the historical and "scientific" racist literature about the inferiority of African people. Check it out!