Professional Men -- W.
Justin Carter, Esq.
Biography from Pennsylvania Negro Business Directory--1910
"W. Justin Carter, Attorney-at-law, has been identified with the
growth and progress of Harrisburg since 1895, when he was admitted to the
practice of law at our local bar. Mr. Carter has united with every
effort put forward for the betterment of the condition of the Negroes in the
city, and has contributed of his talents and means to every enterprise
inaugurated. He stands in the front rank of his profession and enjoys
the highest respect of the bench and bar."
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Source
Pennsylvania Negro
Business Directory--1910. Harrisburg, PA: James H. W. Howard and
Son, 1910. Page 81.
Notes
See additional information for other
important events in the life of Carter, below.
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Additional
Accomplishments
Very politically active, W. Justin
Carter was one of the founders of the Niagara Movement: the movement born in 1905 to demand full and equal
rights and to oppose the policy of accommodation set forth by Booker T.
Washington in 1895. In aligning himself with the radical W.E.B. DuBois
rather than with the more conservative Washington, Carter was verifying his commitment
to activist social programs. This activism can be seen in his work to
rewrite Pennsylvania's Workmen's Compensation Act, under Governor George
Earle, and his work with the state Unemployment Compensation
Bureau.
He provided notable assistance
to Mrs. Mossell Griffin of the legislative arm of the National Association
of Colored Women in working for passage of the
Dyer Bill--first introduced in 1918 by Rep. Leonidas Dyer of Missouri--in
their Anti-Lynching Crusade of the 1920's. Although the Dyer Bill
ultimately failed to pass in the U.S. Senate, Ms. Griffin's work culminated
in the signing of a state anti-lynching law by Governor Gifford Pinchot in
1923.
Carter was president of the Advocate-Verdict newspaper,
published weekly by the Douglass Development Company in Harrisburg. The newspaper
billed itself as a publication "devoted to the interest of the Colored
race." He was also an assistant to Lt. Governor Edward E. Beidleman,
from 1920-1923.
Personal Information
Born on May 28, 1866 in Virginia,
William Justin Carter attended the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute
before continuing his education at
Howard University, graduating from the Howard University School of Law in
1892. He worked briefly as an assistant principal at an Annapolis public
school, and married Elizabeth Allen, of Baltimore, in 1894. That same
year he appeared in Harrisburg as a practicing attorney. Carter died
in Harrisburg in 1947 and is buried in William Howard Day Cemetery.
Funeral Notice
"Pallbearers Announced
For W. Justin Carter"
"The list of pallbearers for W. Justin Carter, Sr., Negro attorney who
died Sunday at his home, 1831 Market street, was announced today.
"Funeral services will be
held at 1 p.m. tomorrow in Wesley AME Zion Church, with the Rev. Vernon R. James,
pastor of Capital Street Presbyterian Church, officiating. Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson, president of Howard
University, Washington, will read the eulogy. Burial will be in William
Howard Day Cemetery, Steelton. Friends may call at the Hoover funeral
home, Second and Adams streets, Steelton, tonight from 7 to 9 o'clock and at
the Wesley Zion Church tomorrow from 11 a.m. until the time of services.
"Active pallbearers will
be Charles G. Thomas, Dr. Harold J. Hurst, Dr. Harvey J. Reynolds, C. Sylvester
Jackson, William H. Adley and Charles B.
Erwin.
"Honorary pallbearers are: President
Judge William M. Hargest, Judges J. Paul Rupp, Robert E. Woodside and Karl
E. Richards, District
Attorney Carl B. Shelley, Dr. Charles H. Crampton, Dr. Mordecai Johnson, Dr.
Channing Tobias, director, Phelps-Stokes Fund, New York; Walter White, executive
secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Dr.
Charles S. Wesley, president, Wilberforce University, Xenia, Ohio; Dr. W. E.
B. DuBois, director of research, NAACP, New York; Dr. Dwight O. W. Holmes,
president, Morgan College, Baltimore; Dr. G. Lake Imes,
field representative, National Council, Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, and
Lloyd K. Garrison, dean,
School of Law, University of Wisconsin."
Source: Harrisburg Evening News, Harrisburg, PA, March
26, 1947.
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