Noah W. Parden facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Noah Walter Parden
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| Born | 1868 |
| Died | February 23, 1944 (aged 75–76) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Attorney, Politician |
| Years active | 1891–1940 |
| Known for | One of the first African-American attorneys to argue before the United States Supreme Court |
Noah Walter Parden (c. 1868 – February 23, 1944) was an American attorney and politician who was active in Chattanooga, Tennessee, East St. Louis, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri between 1891 and 1940. In 1906 he became one of the first African-American attorneys to serve as lead counsel in a case before the United States Supreme Court, and he was among the first to make an oral argument before the Court. In 1935 he became the first African American to be appointed to the position of Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, a public office, in St. Louis.
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Education and personal life
Noah Parden was born near Rome, Georgia, probably in 1868. His mother was a former slave who worked as a housekeeper and cook. His father was a white man. When he was about seven years old he was sent to an orphanage after the death of his mother, who had raised him as a single parent.
In 1884 he left Rome for Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he supported himself by working as a barber and at other odd jobs while he spent five years attending Howard High School. He graduated in May 1890, presenting the class oration on "The Duty of a Citizen." He then enrolled as a senior in the law department at Central Tennessee College in Nashville, graduating in 1891.
In 1892 he married Mattie S. Broyles (March 29, 1870 – July 15, 1934), a native of Dalton, Georgia whom he had met in Nashville, and they settled in Chattanooga where they remained until 1906. They had two children, Frank B. Parden, who died August 22, 1925, and Lillian Parden Bracy. After leaving Chattanooga, Parden and his family moved briefly to Pueblo, Colorado and then settled in East St. Louis, Illinois. In 1922 the Pardens moved to neighboring St. Louis, Missouri, although Noah Parden continued to maintain a law office in East St. Louis.
After Mattie Parden's death in 1934, Noah Parden married Elizabeth Polk, a divorcee from East St. Louis. Her former husband Tranne Polk, an East St. Louis detective and politician, had been acquitted on charges of assaulting Parden in 1933. During the trial, Polk testified that Parden had interfered in his personal affairs.
Parden was able to speak several languages, played the violin, and was knowledgeable about art, music and literature. He also remained connected to his rural roots. By the end of the 1920s he had acquired a 400-acre cotton plantation near Hickory, Mississippi, where he vacationed and to which he would briefly retire before returning to live in St. Louis until the end of his life. On the farm, he did agricultural work to relax; he also knew how to sew, knit and make his own clothing.
Parden died on February 23, 1944, and was buried at Booker Washington Cemetery in Centreville Station, Illinois. He was survived by his wife Elizabeth, his daughter, and a stepdaughter, Gertrude Polk.
Legal and political career
Noah Parden practiced law from 1891 to 1940, a career which spanned 49 years. At the end of 1929 he claimed to have defended 236 people accused of murder, of whom one had been legally executed and another lynched. In addition to his private legal practice he also worked as a prosecutor, serving for nine years (1908-1917) as an assistant state's attorney in St. Clair County, Illinois, and for five years (1935-1940) as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in St. Louis. He intermittently engaged in writing, editing and public speaking, and was involved in local politics in East St. Louis and St. Louis.
Activities in Chattanooga, 1891-1906
After receiving his law degree in 1891 Noah Parden began his career as an attorney in Chattanooga. in 1892, he briefly established a partnership with another black attorney, James P. Easley. During 1895 Parden and Easley also published a newspaper, the Chattanooga Herald, although Parden soon sold his share in the paper. He gained a reputation as an effective defense attorney who was able to obtain victories for his African-American clients in jury trials despite the all-white juries employed in local courts.
Activities in East St. Louis and St. Louis, 1907-1940
Noah Parden spent the remainder of his professional life in the twin cities of East St. Louis, Illinois, where he settled in late 1906 or early 1907, and St. Louis, Missouri, where he relocated with his family in 1922. His practice included white as well as black clients, and he held elective office by serving on the St. Clair County Board of Supervisors, to which he was elected in 1907 and where he chaired the judiciary committee. However, this phase of his career also reflected the segregated character of the two cities' legal and political institutions.
Work as a prosecutor
Parden served as a prosecutor in both cities. He was appointed to multiple two-year terms as an Assistant State's Attorney in East St. Louis, serving from 1908 to 1917, and became the first black attorney to be appointed an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in St. Louis, a position he held from 1935 until his retirement in 1940. In both jurisdictions he was assigned the task of trying African Americans brought before the court. In East St. Louis his work included prosecution of black suspects accused of carrying concealed weapons, an arrangement which, according to historian Charles Lumpkins, provided black people with "access to legal redress" that would not otherwise have been available. In St. Louis, his job was to prosecute black men accused of abandoning their families.
Appearance before the United States Supreme Court
Noah Parden was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court in 1906 on the recommendation of Emanuel D. Molyneaux Hewlett, an African American attorney and member of the Supreme Court bar who acted as a co-counsel in many cases involving black southerners. His only appearance before the court was in connection with the Ed Johnson case, during which he made an emergency appeal before Justice John Marshall Harlan in chambers.
Status as an African-American pioneer
Parden was among a small number of African-American attorneys to present cases before the Supreme Court during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In their 1999 study Contempt of Court, Curriden and Phillips asserted that he was the first black attorney to reach two milestones: presentation of an oral argument before a member of the Court (rather than being part of a team of attorneys in which another, white lawyer made the oral arguments), and recognition as lead attorney on a case accepted by the full Supreme Court. However, other black attorneys preceded Parden in one or both of these categories. In 1890 Everett J. Waring, a black lawyer and educator born in Columbus, Ohio, and practicing law in Baltimore, Maryland, argued the case of Jones v. United States (137 U.S. 202 [1890]) before the Court; law professor J. Clay Smith and others describe Waring as the first African American to present an argument. Two other black attorneys argued a pair of cases before the court on December 13, 1895, which challenged laws excluding blacks from grand juries in Mississippi. Parden's co-counsel E.M. Hewlett, along with lawyer and politician Cornelius J. Jones, argued Gibson v. State of Mississippi (162 U.S. 565 [1896]) and Smith v. State of Mississippi (162 U.S. 592 [1896]). In Smith, Jones was the sole representative of the plaintiff in error, while in Gibson that position was filled by Hewlett. In 1900, Wilford H. Smith became the first African-American attorney to win a case before the Supreme Court, Carter v. Texas (177 U.S. 442 [1900]), in which he also served as lead attorney along with co-counsel Hewlett.
Recognition and honors
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Parden's career and accomplishments have begun to receive public recognition. In 2003, the Illinois General Assembly adopted a resolution honoring Parden "for his dedication and commitment to the causes of justice and equality," and recognizing "his contributions to the citizens of Illinois and the country." In 2013 the Southern Center for Human Rights inaugurated the Noah Parden and Styles Hutchins Fellowships, three-year awards supporting attorneys working at the center, in honor of Parden and his partner in the Johnson appeal.
