12-02-2025
Honoring Black History: JR Clifford, the first African-American lawyer in West Virginia
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — J.R. Clifford was many things, an activist, an educator, a journalist, a veteran and the first African-American lawyer in the state of West Virginia. Through the efforts of Friends of Blackwater and its J.R. Clifford Project, his story is preserved at the West Virginia and Regional History Center (WVHRC). 12 News took a trip to the archives to learn about Clifford's impactful life.
J.R. Clifford was born in 1848 in Moorefield, Virginia (later West Virginia) to free Blacks Isaac and Septima Clifford. As a teenager, he enlisted in the Union Army, fighting in the Civil War in a colored regiment. After the war, Clifford went to Harpers Ferry to attend Storer College, a school founded in the aftermath of the Civil War to educate freed slaves.
After finishing college, Clifford became an educator himself, serving as a teacher and principal at Sumner School in Martinsburg. During this time, he also started a newspaper—the Pioneer Press—which ran for 35 years.
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In 1887, Clifford passed the bar exam, becoming the first African-American lawyer in West Virginia. Along with being a lawyer, Clifford was a pioneering civil rights activist. In 1898, Clifford represented teacher Carrie Williams, who sued the Board of Education Fairfax District in Tucker County for having the school term of black students be three months shorter than white students.
West Virginia & Regional History Center Director Lori Hostuttler explained that the circuit court sided with Williams and Clifford. She added how the case was appealed and went to the West Virginia Supreme Court, but was not overturned.
Clifford also attended the 1906 meeting of the Niagara Movement at Harpers Ferry, joining the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois in a call to end segregation.
Clifford died in 1933, leaving behind a legacy of activism in his relentless pursuit of justice. Inside the collection, an educational pamphlet made by the Friends of Blackwater reads, 'West Virginia is our home, we can make things better, we can build a better world, just like J.R. Clifford.'
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