Richard T. Greener

Richard T. Greener. Educator, Lawyer, and Diplomat. , Richard T. Greener, the first African American to graduate from Harvard College, had a distinguished career in public service., Greener was born in Philadelphia. His father, a sailor, disappeared in the Gold Rush in 1853. The family moved to Boston when Richard was nine, but "my parents found that there were no good schools for colored children, so they removed to Cambridge in order that I might attend an unproscriptive [integrated] school.", The Greeners lived on Washington Street near what is now Technology Square. Richard attended the Broadway Grammar School in the "lower Port," but left to support his mother by working in Boston as a clerk, office boy, porter, and wood engraver. After six years, when he could see no possibility of succeeding in business, he resumed his education at Oberlin College and Phillips Academy in Andover. He returned to Cambridge in 1865 to enter Harvard, where he lived at the College House and Stoughton Hall. He belonged to the Pi Eta Club, and was a Class Day speaker at his commencement in 1870., Greener became a school principal in Philadelphia and Washington and completed a law degree while teaching classes at the University of South Carolina. He was admitted to the bar in 1876, served as dean of the Howard University Law School, and practiced law and held public service positions in Washington and New York. The Republican Party rewarded him with an appointment to the Grant Monument Association, which built President Ulysses S. Grant's tomb in New York City. Greener, who was well versed in the fine arts, helped select the architect for the project., The highlight of Greener's career came in 1898, when President William McKinley appointed him the first U.S. consul at Vladivostok, Russia. Greener served ably through the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese War, but was recalled in 1905. He retired to Chicago, where he spent most of his time writing and lecturing. Although he attended the first meeting of the Niagara Movement, he supported neither the accommodationist position of Booker T. Washington nor the opposing views of W.E.B. Du Bois., Isolated from the main political movements of the day, Greener turned to writing and editing but published little. He died in Chicago on May 5, 1922., Related Cambridge African American Trail Marker , W.E.B. Du Bois, 20 Flagg Street, Sources , Class of 1870 Senior Class "Notes," Harvard University Archives , Harvard University Archives photograph collection , Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 1982 , Ruth Ann Stewart and David M. Kahn, Richard T. Greener, His Life and Work, 1980