Portrait from The Afro-American Press and Its Editors. Springfield, MA: Willey & Co., 1891.
John M. Langston (1829-1897) was born free in Virginia but was raised and educated in Ohio, where he attended Oberlin College. Admitted to the Ohio bar in 1854, Langston then opened his own law practice. Langston’s first foray into the convention movement occurred when Frederick Douglass invited him to speak at the 1848 Colored National Convention in Cleveland.
By the time of the Syracuse convention, Langston was already a well-known figure, numbering among his accomplishments service as a delegate to several state colored conventions in the 1850s, establishment of the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society, and election as town clerk in Brownhelm, Ohio, in 1855. After the Civil War, Langston focused his legal career on civil rights issues, including establishing the law department at Howard University, co-authoring the 1875 Civil Rights Act, and attempting to pass civil rights legislation after his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890.