He is believed to be the first African American man in the United States who was licensed to practice law.From Indiana,he learned to read and write on his own and eventually landed first job as a schoolteacher,where he further improved his reading and writing skills.Macon moved to Portland Maine,in the early 1840s and studied law and worked as a law clerk for General Samuel Fesseenden,a local abolitionist and attorney.
After passing the Maine bar exam,he was granted his license to practice law in Maine on July 3,1844.He experience difficulty finding legal work in Maine because whites were unwilling to hire an African American lawyer and few African Americans lived in the state.In 1845 he moved to Boston Massachusetts,
walking fifty miles to the bar exam test site because he could afford transportation,and passing the exam despite his fatigue.He and Robert morris opened the first African American law firm in the United States.
Racial prejudice in Boston again kept him from making a living as a lawyer so he sought to become
a judge to supplement his income.After passing a rigorous qualifying exam for Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County,Massachusetts in 1848,Macon became the first African American in the United States to hold a judicial position despite not being considered a U.S.citizen under the constitution.He moved to Charleston,South Carolina after the Civil War to practice law and was elected to be a judge in the probate court of Charleston in 1874.
Following the Reconstruction Era,he moved to Washington,D.C. where he worked as an attorney for the Land and Improvement Association.He continued to practice law until his death.
While living in Boston Macon and married his wife Hannah,with whom he had five children.
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