John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) was the lone voice on the U.S. Supreme Court supporting legal equality for African Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

John Marshall Harlan was born on June 1, 1833, in Boyle County, Ky. He graduated from Centre College in 1850, then studied law at the University of Transylvania and in the office of his father, a former congressman and Federal district attorney. In 1861 he moved to Louisville to begin his own lucrative law practice.

Originally a Whig, Harlan supported the Constitutional Union party in 1860 and remained a unionist when the Civil War broke out. He recruited a regiment which fought on the side of the North but resigned his colonelcy in 1863 in order to succeed his father as the state attorney general. After the war Harlan entered politics as a Republican, gaining the support of black and white Kentuckians.

Reconstruction in the South...