Wilford H. Smith (c. 1863 – June 9, 1926) was an African-American lawyer who was active in Mississippi, Texas, New York and Alabama between 1883 and 1926. In 1900 Smith became the first black attorney to win a case before the United States Supreme Court with Carter v. Texas (177 U.S. 442 (1900)), a case which reinforced the principle that the constitutional rights of black defendants were violated when they were unable to defend themselves against racial discrimination in jury selection. He also won a second jury discrimination case before the Supreme Court, Dan Rogers v. State of Alabama (192 U.S. 226 (1904)), and unsuccessfully argued two voting rights cases, Giles v. Harris (189 U.S. 475 (1903)) and Giles v. Teasley (193 U.S. 146 (1904)), in a bid for recognition that state laws facilitating racially discriminatory practices in voter registration were unconstitutional violations of black men's civil rights. During his long and wide-ranging legal career Smith's clients included Booker T. Washington in the 1900s and 1910s, and Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the early 1920s.
Education and personal life Wilford Horace Smith was born in Mississippi around 1863. His parents' names are unknown, although according to census records his father was born in Kentucky and his mother in Virginia. During childhood he lived in southwestern Washington County, Mississippi, possibly in the town of Leota. When Smith was fourteen years old, around 1877, he left home to pursue his education. He studied at Wayland Seminary in Washington, DC, where in 1880 he earned a Wayland Prize, and then at the Boston University School of Law, where he graduated cum laude in 1883 with an LL.B. degree. Smith returned to Mississippi and established a law practice in Greenville.
On December 31, 1885, Smith married Laura Compton of Greenville. The Smiths had four children: Pallerfen Keen (born 1886), Naomi (born 1888), Abbie (born 1890) and Wendell (born 1892). The two older children died in early childhood.
In January 1895 Smith moved from Mississippi to Galveston, Texas, where he lived and practiced law until 1901. During this period the Smiths sent their children to Washington, DC, for schooling, accompanied by their mother. The 1900 U.S. Census records Wilford Smith living in a Galveston boarding house along with his law clerk, Owen Compton.
In June 1901 the Smiths moved to New York City where Wilford Smith again established a law practice. Records show that the family was together during most of this time, with the exception of 1910–1911 when Laura Smith and the now young adult children lived in Mount Vernon, NY, while Wilford Smith remained in the city. In addition to his legal work, Smith invested in New York City real estate and in 1922 was described by the New York Age newspaper as owning "some of the best property in Harlem."
In late 1921 or early 1922 Smith returned to Texas and reestablished his practice, first in Galveston and finally in Houston. In May 1926 he fell ill with what was described as a "general breakdown" and his daughter brought him back to New York for treatment. Smith died on June 9, 1926 at the Hill Sanatorium in New York City and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Legal career Smith's legal career spanned more than three decades and included a wide variety of fields and cases. In Mississippi during the 1880s and 1890s he specialized in pension and bounty cases, assisting Civil War veterans and their survivors in claiming federal benefits. He was remembered as successful and prosperous in this field by W.E. Mollison, one of his peers in Mississippi's small black legal community, but he also faced criticism and multiple legal actions stemming from accusations that he overcharged clients or otherwise took financial advantage of them. In July 1894 he was disbarred from practicing before the United States Department of the Interior as a result of "improper, unprofessional and illegal conduct in accepting exorbitant fees from his clients."
Historian Maxwell Bloomfield describes Smith in Galveston between 1895 and 1901 as a successful attorney who attracted both black and white clients and whose volume of cases was comparable to that of white attorneys in solo practice.Bloomfield, Maxwell (1984). "From Deference to Confrontation: The Early Black Lawyers of Galveston, Texas, 1895-1920." In The New High Priests: Lawyers in Post-Civil War America, ed. Gerald W. Gawalt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 158-159. In 1901 he served as the Liberian Consul in Galveston. Smith's best-known case during this period was that of Seth Carter, whom he represented on appeal following a conviction for murder. Smith pursued Carter's case to the United States Supreme Court, where he won a new trial for his client by showing that Texas courts had prevented Carter from presenting evidence that black men had been excluded from the grand jury that had indicted him, a violation of Carter's civil rights.Goldstone, 217.
During his years in New York Smith developed an additional specialization in maritime law, earning the designation of Proctor in Admiralty. In 1905 he was appointed by the New York State attorney general as a special deputy attorney general tasked with prosecuting election fraud cases.
Smith's best known cases in this period were the three Supreme Court cases, Giles v. Harris, Giles v. Teasley, and Rogers v. Alabama, for which he was admitted to the bar in Alabama. All of these cases sought to reverse the disfranchisement of black men under Alabama's 1901 state constitution.Norrell, 298. Smith's civil rights-related work also included participation in the September 1906 effort to free Ota Benga from confinement at the Bronx Zoo, where Benga was being displayed as an exhibit alongside apes in the Monkey House. While no lawsuit was filed in this case, journalist Pamela Newkirk suggests that the threat of one "undoubtedly captured the attention of the Zoological Society's officials" and helped to facilitate Benga's release after 20 days in the zoo. In 1919 Smith represented a group of black chiropodists who had been refused admission to their field's professional organization, the Pedic Society of the State of New York, and won their right to admittance before the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division."In the Matter of the Application of John R. Hillery, Appellant, for a Writ of Mandamus, v. the Pedic Society of the State of New York, Respondent, December 5, 1919" (1920). Reports of Cases Heard and Determined in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Albany, NY: J.B. Lyon Company. pp. 766-769.
During his final years of practice in Texas, in 1924 he joined the appeal after a permanent injunction was granted to white Shriners, first in Houston and then nationally, prohibiting black Shriners, an independent organization, from using the name, rituals or symbols of the Shrine movement. At this time he was described by the Houston Informer, an African-American newspaper, as an "eminent local race attorney," and as "one of the foremost appeal lawyers in the country." Smith died before the conclusion of this case, which ultimately went before the United States Supreme Court as Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order v. Michaux (279 U.S. 737 (1929)), and was decided in favor of the black organization.
Supreme Court cases
Carter v. Texas Smith's client in this case, Seth Carter, was a black man from Galveston who had killed his girlfriend and attempted suicide before confessing to the crime. He was convicted of murder in 1898. Carter's attorney, Emanuel Molyneaux Hewlett, asked Smith to join the case on appeal, and Smith won a new trial for Carter.Goldstone, 215-216.
At Carter's second trial Smith filed a motion to quash the indictment against him because, although black men made up a quarter of Galveston County's registered voters, none had served on the grand jury that indicted Carter. Smith argued that they had been excluded on racial grounds, which previous rulings by the United States Supreme Court had established was a violation of black defendants' civil rights. He offered to submit evidence and call witnesses to show that black men were systematically excluded from Galveston County grand juries. The judge overruled Smith's motions and Carter was again convicted of murder.Goldstone, 216. When Smith appealed the verdict, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals initially ruled against him on the grounds that Carter had not challenged the composition of the grand jury using the procedure provided by the state's criminal code. The court then acknowledged that, as the grand jury had been empaneled before Carter's arrest, he had had no chance to do so, and ruled against Carter on the grounds that he had not provided evidence of discrimination in the grand jury's composition.
Smith's appeal to the United States Supreme Court was decided on April 16, 1900. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Texas appeals court decision had violated Carter's constitutional rights, holding that the court had erred in its ruling that Smith had failed to provide evidence of discrimination in grand jury composition because the record showed that he had attempted to do so but been prevented by the trial court. Carter then pled guilty to second-degree murder and received a five-year sentence.Starkey, p. 25 ftnt.
Alabama cases For these cases Smith, with the financial support of Booker T. Washington, joined an effort by the Colored Men's Suffrage Association of Alabama (CMSAA) to overturn provisions in Alabama's 1901 state constitution that enabled discrimination against black men seeking to register to vote. The constitution, which had been written with the explicit intent of disfranchising black Alabamans, created a two-tier voter registration system. The first category, available only until December 20, 1902, was open to United States military veterans, Confederate veterans, and their descendants—qualifications that few black men had—and to men "who are of good character and who understand the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican form of government." Men who registered in this category were registered for life. Those who registered later, or who did not qualify for the first category, had to re-register for every election and were subject to literacy, property and employment requirements. Responsibility for registering voters, including determining whether applicants met subjective criteria like being of "good character," was assigned to county-level boards of registrars. Any appeal of the registrars' decisions was sent to the state circuit courts, to be addressed through a jury trial.Brenner, p. 859.Alabama State Constitution of 1901, p. 37. A group of black postal workers in Montgomery formed the CMSAA after their applications for lifetime voter registration were denied in 1902. The CMSAA president, Jackson Giles, volunteered to serve as the plaintiff for their planned legal challenge. After Smith and Washington heard about their plans, Smith went to Alabama and volunteered to serve as Giles' attorney.Goldstone, p. 220.
Smith's and Washington's goal was to use Giles' case to challenge the Alabama constitution in the federal courts and ultimately before the United States Supreme Court, but because it technically provided a remedy for those seeking to appeal voter registration denials, Smith was required to begin in the state courts.Norrell, p. 261. In 1902 he filed five cases, eventually leading to three Supreme Court appearances: