Missouri Law Review Volume 86 Issue 1 Winter 2021 Article 5 Winter 2021 Black Lawyers of Missouri: 150 Years of Progress and Promise Willie J. Epps Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Willie J. Epps Jr., Black Lawyers of Missouri: 150 Years of Progress and Promise, 86 MO. L. REV. (2021) Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol86/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Missouri Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Epps: Black Lawyers of Missouri: 150 Years of Progress and Promise MISSOURI LAW REVIEW VOLUME 86 WINTER 2021 NUMBER 1 Black Lawyers of Missouri: 150 Years of Progress and Promise Willie J. Epps, Jr.* ABSTRACT In this Article, Judge Epps amasses and orchestrates an unprecedented amount of information about Missouri’s Black lawyers from 1871 to 2021. As Missouri marks its bicentennial, and the sesquicentennial of the first Black lawyer admitted to practice here, this Article offers analysis and insights about the most well-known Black lawyers, including new details on many previously unknown Black lawyers. According to Judge Epps, the earliest of these legal pioneers courageously practiced law when Blacks had few or no rights under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution, and de jure and de facto discrimination reigned in Missouri.