John Mercer Langston started his career at Oberlin College in its Preparatory Department at the age of fourteen.

Langston was born free in 1829. His father was a wealthy white planter named Ralph Quarles. His mother was an emancipated, financially independent slave named Lucy Langston. His parents died in 1834, leaving him a decent inheritance. At age nine he left his guardian and moved to Cincinnati where he became fascinated with the close group of freedmen who fought against bigotry.

Specializing in debate and remaining active in the black rights movement, Langston was the fifth black man to graduate from the Collegiate Department in 1849. A year before he graduated, Frederick Douglas invited him to speak at the National Black Convention in Cleveland.

Langston continued his education at Oberlin. He received a Masters in theology, but no law school would admit him. He read law under the instruction of Philomen Bliss of Elyria and became the first black lawyer in Ohio in 1854.

Langston’s energy was almost solely focused on obtaining freedom for slaves and equal rights. He organized a multitude of anti-slavery societies on the state and local level. He was very active in the Underground Railroad. He gave public addresses that were not only abolitionist but also appealed for temperance and women’s rights. After marrying Caroline Wall, a senior in Oberlin’s literary department, he briefly settled in Brownhelm, Ohio where he practiced law. He was also elected to the position of Town Clerk in Brownhelm, making him among the very first black men to hold public office. This jump-started his political career, which he was to continue when he moved back to Oberlin in 1856. In the 1860’s he served on the city council and the Board of Education.

Unsurprisingly, Langston was very supportive of the Union in the Civil War. Earlier in his career, he advocated black resettlement, but by the war he changed his mind and advocated armed resistance. He backed this up by being the assembler and chief recruiter for the Massachusetts 54th, the first black regiment as well as the 55th and the Ohio 5th.

In 1864, he was elected by the Black National Convention to lead the National Equal Rights League. Langston proceeded to orchestrate huge suffrage campaigns in Ohio, Kansas and Missouri. Three years later, Congress approved suffrage for black men. After the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, Langston was named Educational Inspector for the Freedmen’s Bureau and advocated for equal education, political equality and economic justice around the south.

Langston founded the law department of Howard University in 1868 and later served as acting president. His bid for school presidency was rejected in 1875 on racial grounds. In the following eight years he served as consul-general in Haiti.

Langston became the first African American to be elected to Congress from Virginia in 1888. However, his victory was contested for eighteen months and he lost the reelection six months later.

He retired in 1894 and wrote his autobiography, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capital. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1897.

Langston is now commemorated at Oberlin College by a dormitory, commonly called North.