Exploring Magna Carta Rare Book Room Exhibit Cover

Robert Morris (1823-1882) has long been known as the second African-American lawyer in the United States. His deep involvement and leadership in African-American civil rights in the 1840s and 1850s, however, has been underestimated. This exhibit reveals Morris’s essential role in the Massachusetts antislavery and civil rights efforts.

This exhibit features books from Morris’s personal library, generously loaned by the John J. Burns Library at Boston College. Along with a sampling of his papers from the Boston Athenaeum, these volumes help us see the many dimensions of Robert Morris--his ardent abolitionism, his leadership in the fight against segregated schools and militias, his devotion to his wife, his struggles with his faith, and his relationship with a young Boston College.

The exhibit was curated by Laurel Davis, Curator of Rare Books, and Mary Sarah Bilder, Founders Professor of Law.  It will remain on view into July 2017. Please come in and take a look!  The exhibit catalog is also available to download.

For more, see the curators' article "The Library of Robert Morris, Antebellum Civil Rights Lawyer & Activist," Law Library Journal 111, no. 4 (2019): 461-508.

Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room

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