Richard T. Greener papers

1870-1918

Educator, lawyer and consular officer. Richard T. Greener was born in Philadelphia on January 30, 1844 and died in Chicago on May 2, 1922. He attended Harvard College where he won top prizes for oratory and dissertation writing and in 1870 became that institution's first African-American graduate.

After graduation Greener pursued a teaching career and was a professor of metaphysics and logic at the University of South Carolina from 1873 to 1877, during which time he also served as University Librarian. In this period he also completed his law degree, and was admitted to the bar in 1876 in the state of South Carolina and in the District of Columbia, a year later. From 1877 to 1880 he was a law instructor and dean of the Law Department of Howard University. With the disbanding of the Howard University Law Department, Greener remained in Washington where he practiced law and actively campaigned on behalf of the Republican Party.

Greener later entered the foreign service and was appointed Consul to Bombay, India in 1878, a post he declined. However, later that year he accepted an appointment as the first U.S. Consul to Vladivostok, Russia. Upon the recommendation of the Russian government he was reappointed as commercial agent and served in this capacity until 1905 when he was dismissed from his post and from the foreign service on unsubstantiated charges. Greener retired to Chicago after 1906 and devoted his time to his writings, continuing to contribute articles to various periodical publications.