"David Augustus Straker" (1868-February 14 1908)

Author ,lawyer,and politician,was born and raised in Bridgetown,Barbados,where he achieved success as a teacher and principal at St.Mary's Public School.In 1868 he moved to Kentucky,where he taught at a freedman's school for one year.He entered Howard University in 1869,graduating two years later with a degree in law.David returned to Kentucky when he was unable to find work as a lawyer,he took a position as a postal clerk.During this time he married Annie M.Carey and authored numerous editorials for Frederick Douglass's New National Era,gaining him national exposure.In 1875 he resigned his postal position to join a law firm in Charleston,South Carolina,where he and his wife located.A staunch Republican,he was first elected to public office in November,1876 as the Orangeburg County Representative in the lower house of the state legislature.Redeemer Democratic,refused to seat him and his fellow Republicans the following year as they anticipated the end of Reconstruction in the state.Undeterred,David continued to run for office and was reelected by the citizens of Organgeburg County in 1878 and  1880 even as the Democrats continued to deny him his seat in the legislature.In protest,David and law partner Robert Brown Elliott,a former South Carolina Congressman,led an African-American delegation to Washington,D.C. to meet with President James Abram Garfield about the political discrimination and voting irregularities under South Carolina Democrats.Although James was assassinated before he could respond to their protests,David earned a national reputation as a fearless lieutenant governor in 1884.After that defeat and in response to growing racial animosity in the state,David removed to Detroit,Michigan,in 1887.After opening his Detroit office,he began lecturing on racial politics in the "New South."Though notable for exposing the deplorable antics of Southern Democrats,he also became involved in the local struggle for civil rights.In 1890 he successfully argued a civil rights case,Ferguson v.Gies before the Michigan Supreme Court.The Ferguson decision outlawed seperation by race in public places was often cited in subsequent cases challenging Jim Crow legislation.After his victory David forged alliances with some of the most ardent supporters of civil rights for African-Americans,including W.E.B. Du Bois.He was elected as a judge in Wayne County,Michigan in 1893,and served as the founding president National Federation of Colored Men in 1895.David also authored five books including the influential The New South Investigated (1888),which forcefully exposed the racists policies of the Redeemer Democrats who overthrew Reconstruction a decade earlier.David died of pneumonia in Detroit Michigan.