Editing Aaron Albert Mossell

{{Short description|American lawyer}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}
[[File:Aaron Albert Mossell 1888.jpg|thumb|Aaron Albert Mossell II in 1888]]

'''Aaron Albert Mossell II''' (November 3, 1863 – February 1, 1951) was an African-American lawyer who became the first African-American to graduate from the [[University of Pennsylvania Law School]].<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0106/pro05.html | title=African American Firsts Highlight Rich Legacy | date=January 5, 2006 | access-date=November 13, 2006 | author=Sheryl P. Simons | work=The Pennsylvania Gazette| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20061213131445/http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0106/pro05.html| archive-date=December 13, 2006 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=MOSSELL, AARON ALBERT (1863–1951), lawyer, mining engineer and civil rights campaigner {{!}} Dictionary of Welsh Biography |url=https://biography.wales/article/s14-MOSS-ALB-1863 |access-date=July 11, 2024 |website=biography.wales}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Aaron Albert Mossell I, Eliza Bowers, and five of their children (ca. 1870-1875).jpg|thumb|Mossell's parents, Aaron Albert Mossell I and Eliza Bowers with their surviving five  children, c. 1870–1875. From left to right are: May Mossell; Alvarilla Mossell; Charles Mossell; Aaron Albert Mossell II; and [[Nathan Francis Mossell]] (1856–1946).<ref name=Archives>{{cite news| url=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1800s/mossell_aaron_a.html| title=Aaron Albert Mossell (1863–1951)| access-date=May 22, 2010| work=[[University of Pennsylvania]]| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612173855/http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1800s/mossell_aaron_a.html| archive-date=June 12, 2010| url-status=dead}}</ref>]]
Aaron Albert Mossell II was born in [[Hamilton, Ontario|Hamilton]], [[Canada West]], in 1863, the youngest of six children. His parents had moved with their first three children from Maryland to [[Hamilton, Ontario|Hamilton]] in the 1850s to escape the [[racial discrimination in the United States]].{{cn|date=March 2024}}

His father, Aaron Albert Mossell I (born 1824), the grandson of slaves, became a brickmaker and in Hamilton went to school to learn to read and write. His mother Eliza Bowers was a [[free people of color|free woman]] from Baltimore whose family had been deported to [[Trinidad]] when she was a child. She returned later and met Mossell. By 1870, the family had returned to the United States and lived in [[Lockport (city), New York|Lockport]], [[New York (state)|New York]].<ref name=Archives/> While in Lockport, Aaron Mossell I led the effort to desegregate the local school system and, in 2021, a local middle school was named in his honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://buffalonews.com/news/local/education/lockport-school-to-be-renamed-for-19th-century-black-leader-who-forced-desegregation/article_d7b22cd6-ca10-11eb-9f63-0b18258be62c.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1|title=Lockport school to be renamed for 19th century Black leader who forced desegregation|last=Prohaska|first=Thomas J.|date=June 10, 2021|work=[[The Buffalo News]]|access-date=June 10, 2021}}</ref>

Aaron Mossell II graduated from [[Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)|Lincoln University]].  He earned his law degree at the [[University of Pennsylvania Law School]] in 1888 as the first African American to graduate.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.sadieconference.com/history.htm | title=The 18th Annual Sadie T. M. Alexander Commemorative Conference | access-date=November 13, 2006 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050217180340/http://www.sadieconference.com/history.htm | archive-date=February 17, 2005 }}</ref>

Mossell practiced law with two African-American partners in offices in the Witherspoon Building.  He was solicitor of the [[Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital]], where his brother [[Nathan Francis Mossell]] was medical director. He was said to have defended some African-American men after the racial riots of 1917–1919 in Philadelphia.<ref name=Archives/>

In 1945, Aaron Mossell attended the Fifth [[Pan-African Congress]] in Manchester representing the United Committee of Coloured and Colonial Organisations in Cardiff.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Sherwood |first=Marika |title=Manchester and the 1945 Pan-African Congress |publisher=Savannah Press |year=1995 |isbn=0951972022 |location=London}}</ref><ref name=":0" />

==Marriage and family==
Mossell married Mary Louisa Tanner in Philadelphia around 1890. They had three children.<ref name=Archives/> Aaron Albert Tanner III (1893–1959) became a pharmacist in Philadelphia. Elizabeth Mossell Anderson (1894–1975) became Dean of Women at [[Virginia State College]] and later at [[Wilberforce University]] in Ohio. [[Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander|Sadie Tanner Mossell]] (1898–1985), also graduated from Penn and served as an editor of the ''Law Review''.,<ref>{{cite journal | title=The First Black President of the Harvard Law Review | journal=The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education | pages=22–25 | issue=30 | date=Winter 2000–2001}}</ref> became a practicing lawyer, Assistant City Solicitor and activist on civil rights issues

Mossell separated from his wife and family when Sadie was about a year old, and the couple eventually divorced. Later, he moved to [[Cardiff, Wales]], where he was living by the 1930s and remained the rest of his life, dying there on February 1, 1951, aged 87.<ref name=Archives/><ref name=":0" />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mossell, Aaron Albert}}
[[Category:1863 births]]
[[Category:1951 deaths]]
[[Category:American people of Canadian descent]]
[[Category:Black Canadian lawyers]]
[[Category:Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) alumni]]
[[Category:Lawyers from Hamilton, Ontario]]
[[Category:Mossell family]]
[[Category:University of Pennsylvania Law School alumni]]
[[Category:19th-century African-American lawyers]]
[[Category:19th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:American lawyers]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American lawyers]]
[[Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States]]