John Adams, Senior was an American minister, lawyer, and politician and a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature.
Background
He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, was a lawyer and minister in South Carolina, Washington State, and Colorado before settling in Omaha, Nebraska. Adams was born February 2, 1876 in Atlanta, Georgia to the John and Belle Adams. On September 16, 1902 he married Hattie Edith Bowman daughter of John and Melissa Bowman in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Education
He attended high school in Atlanta public schools and attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Yale University, Gammon Theological Seminary, and received a Masters of Arts from AME affiliated Campbell College in Jackson, Mississippi.
Career
While in South Carolina he took a civil rights case to the United States. Supreme Court where he lost. He had three sons, John, Harold South. and Ralph West. - John, Junior and Ralph joined John, Senior as partners in a law practice in the 1930s. Adams died of a heart attack on the morning of Saturday, April 22, 1962.
While not formally trained as a lawyer, Adams was first admitted to the bar in South Carolina during the early 1900s.
He practiced law in Orangeburg, South Carolina in a firm with Jacob Moorer, who was also black. In a tense racial environment, Franklin was found guilty and sentenced to death by an all white jury.
Moorer and Adams appealed, challenging the racial composition of the grand jury and petit jury as well as the constitutionality of South Carolina"s 1895 Constitution. They lost in state courts and appealed to the United States. Supreme Court where they again lost in Franklin v.
South Carolina. The case received national attention and finally in 1919, Franklin sentence was commuted and he was released on parole due to the continued efforts of Moorer and Adams, but also the efforts of Booker T. Washington, Oswald Garrison Villard, Joel Elias Spingarn, Frances Blascoer, Bernard Hagood, and Claude Sawyer That occasion marked the second time black lawyers had appeared before the Supreme Court.
Adams left South Carolina after that case and moved to Washington State and then to Pueblo, Colorado where he continued to practice law. After moving to Omaha and was admitted to the Nebraska bar on motion in 1922. Adams also served as president of Daniel Payne University at Birmingham, Alabama in 1935 where he served for four years.
Adams" son, John Adams, Junior was a Nebraska State Legislator from 1935–1941.
In 1942, John, Junior lost in an election against Dentist Doctor Harry A Foster. In 1944, while Adams, Junior was serving in World World War II, Adams, Senior decided to run for that seat, in Nebraska"s fifth district, losing to Foster.
Adams, Saint lost again in a primary in 1946. He also was known for his opposition to gambling and vehemently opposed the legalization of bingo.
Membership
He was the only black member of the Nebraska unicameral for much of his tenure from 1949–1962. The Governor and many members of the state legislature attended his funeral.