Clement G. Morgan

Clement G. Morgan. Lawyer, Public Official, and Activist. , Clement Garnett Morgan, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, was the first African American elected to the Board of Alderman in Cambridge. He was a founder of the Niagara Movement, a predecessor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)., Morgan was born in Virginia; his parents, Clement and Elizabeth Garnett Morgan, were slaves. After Emancipation, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Morgan graduated from the famous M Street High School., At age twenty-six, Morgan entered the Boston Latin School to prepare for college. He attended Harvard with W.E.B. Du Bois and was elected class orator by this fellow seniors in 1890., Morgan graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1893. A Republican, he served on the Cambridge Common Council in 1895 and 1986 and on the Board of Aldermen from 1897 to 1899. he also ran unsuccessfully for state representative., Morgan was one of the Niagara 29, a group of blacks who were among the first to oppose Booker T. Washington's acceptance of the segregationist movement in the South. Of the original members, Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter were Harvard graduates; Emery T. Morris also lived in Cambridge. William H. Lewis, another Harvard alumnus, dropped out before the movement was formally organized in 1905., The Niagara Movement and its newspaper, the Boston Guardian, threatened Washington's power by stressing a policy of social and political freedom for all. After the movement dissolved, Morgan became one of the original officers of the Boston chapter of the NAACP., Morgan lived on Columbia Street for a few years following law school, but around 1898 moved to Prospect Street, which was then a prosperous middle-class boulevard. He maintained a law practice in Boston and was active in community affairs until his death. His funeral service was held at the Harvard Street Methodist Church (now St. Bartholomew's), and he was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. His house was torn down in 1939., Related Cambridge African American Trail Markers , Maria Baldwin, 196 Prospect Street , W.E.B. Du Bois, 20 Flagg Street , William H. Lewis, 226 Upland Road , Emery T. Morris, 30 Parker Street, Sources , Boston Globe, June 3, 1929 , Cambridge Chronicle, June 7, 1929 , Cambridge Public Library photograph collection , Stephen R. Fox, The Guardian of Boston: William Monroe Trotter, 1970 , Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 1982