Samuel R. Lowery (December 9, 1830 or 1832 c. 1900) was an African American preacher and lawyer, who was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court upon the motion of Belva Lockwood. He was NOT the fifth Black attorney admitted to practice law, and he was NOT the first Black lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court; that was Everett J. Waring of Maryland.
Early life
Samuel R. Lowery was born December 9, 1830
[Simmons, William J., and Henry McNeal Turner. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. GM Rewell & Company, 1887. p144-148] or 1832
[Smith, Jessie Carney, and Linda T. Wynn. The Complete Encyclopedia of African American History. Visible Ink Press, 2015. p331] near
Nashville, Tennessee. His father, Peter, was an African American slave and his mother was a Cherokee Indian. His mother died when Samuel was eight years old.
Together with his father, Peter Lowery, Lowery worked at Franklin College, Tennessee and studied under the Christian preacher,
Tolbert Fanning
Tolbert Fanning (May 10, 1810 – May 3, 1874) was one of the most influential leaders of what came to be called the American Restoration Movement. Born in what would later become Cannon County, Tennessee. He was man of many talents in both religi ...
. At sixteen he taught in school for four years.
In 1849, his father purchased his family's freedom and joined the
Church of the Disciples and became the church's first black preacher. Samuel also converted and began preaching. In 1857, he moved to
Cincinnati, Ohio and continued preaching there. In 1858 he married
and moved to
Chatham, Ontario (the West Canada) where he remained for three years before returning to the US and moving to a farm given to him by his father near West Lancaster in
Fayette County, Ohio
Fayette County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 28,951. Its county seat is Washington Court House, Ohio, Washington Court House. The coun ...
.
In 1863, after the
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal sta ...
was issued, he went to Nashville to preach to the black soldiers and freedmen in the area. At the time, Colonel R. K. Crawford of the
40th United States Colored Troops was in command and Lowery was denied commission as chaplain of the regiment. Instead, he was transferred to the
9th United States Heavy Artillery U.S. Colored Troops where he received a commission as chaplain.
He also was a teacher for the
2nd U. S. Colored Light Artillery U.S. Colored Troops, Battery A.
Teaching and law

After the war, he moved his family to
Rutherford County, Tennessee
Rutherford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located in Middle Tennessee. As of the 2021 census, the population was 352,182, making it the fifth-most populous county in Tennessee. A study conducted by the Univers ...
where he continued to teach and preach.
Lowery and his father founded a black university, the Tennessee Manual Labor University in 1867
in
Ebenezer, Tennessee near
Murfreesboro
Murfreesboro is a city in and county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 152,769 according to the 2020 census, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010. Murfreesboro is located in the Nashville metropol ...
based on the model of Franklin College. He also began studying law. The school began to struggle in 1872, with reasons given including financial improprieties
and the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
.
The accusations of financial improprieties were based on an 1872 fundraising tour of the north by Lowery and another teacher, Daneil Wadkins. The pair, who were black and Republican, were not supported by white, largely Democratic, Disciples who frequently criticized the school and reportedly felt that success in the black school would undermine white superiority. Lowery and Wadkins were accused of mismanaging the funds and expelled from the church. Without support, further fundraising efforts failed and the school closed in 1874. Lowery moved back to Nashville, where he was admitted to the bar and began practicing law. In 1875, he moved to
Huntsville, Alabama. Lowery was sponsored to the Supreme Court Bar by Belva Ann Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the bar,
February 2, 1880.
In this, Lowery was the fifth African American and first African-American Southerner to be admitted to the Supreme Court Bar and the first to actually practice before the Supreme Court.
Silk cultivation and industry
About 1874, his ten-year-old daughter, Annie L. Lowery, attended an exhibition of
silkworm
The domestic silk moth (''Bombyx mori''), is an insect from the moth family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of ''Bombyx mandarina'', the wild silk moth. The silkworm is the larva or caterpillar of a silk moth. It is an economically imp ...
s by Lewis Theobald and persuaded her father to buy some silkworm eggs. Annie began to raise silkworms on white mulberry trees at their home in Huntsville. Annie died in 1877, and Samuel continued her work. He met with other major silk manufacturers in the United States, including Frank Cheney, brother of
Ward Cheney and John Kyle of Paterson, New Jersey. In 1875, Lowery established the Lowery Industrial Academy, and later founded the S. R. and R. M. Lowery Industrial Silk Culture and Manufacturing Company.
Lowery believed that black workers in the south would be ideal workers in the industry, comparing the work to work in cotton fields.
In 1879, Lowery was the editor of a newspaper, the ''National Freeman'', in Huntsville. In 1880 he established a cooperative community in
Jefferson County, Alabama
Jefferson County is the List of counties in Alabama, most populous county in the U.S. state of Alabama, located in the central portion of the state. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 674,721. Its county seat i ...
called Loweryvale.
He spent much of his later career advocating the silk industry. He won awards for his silk at international exhibitions in
Louisville in the 1880s,
New Orleans in 1884, and
Omaha in 1898. He also traveled to Washington DC a number of times to seek federal aid for the industry. In August 1900, Lowery traveled to Boston for the meetings led by
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
which founded the
National Negro Business League. Lowery died around that year, and his silk farm continued at least until November 1902.
[Investigating Silk Culture. Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, Alabama). Thursday, November 13, 1902 Volume: LXXIII Issue: 310 Page: 5]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowery, Samuel
19th-century African-American lawyers
19th-century American lawyers
Lawyers from Nashville, Tennessee
Lawyers from Huntsville, Alabama
Union Army chaplains
African Americans in the American Civil War
19th-century African-American educators
19th-century American educators
African-American journalists
American male journalists
Supreme Court of the United States people
Tennessee Republicans
Alabama Republicans
1830s births
1900s deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
19th-century American clergy
20th-century African-American lawyers
Ministers of the Restoration Movement