John A. Moss

John A. Moss (born circa 1853), was a well-known lawyer and civic leader in Anacostia. Enslaved, he escaped from a slave dealer to the Union lines as a young boy. He came to the Disrict, where he worked in the U.S. Botanic Garden and was befriended by Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist and civil rights champion. With Sumner's help, Moss secured work at the Library of Congress and went on to study law. He graduated from Howard University Law School in 1873 and was admitted to the D.C. Bar that same year. For many years he was the only lawyer in the Anacostia neighborhood. Upon the recommendation of Frederick Douglass was appointed justice of the peace for Washington County in 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes, making Moss the first African American judicial officer in the District. Moss was reappointed by Presidents James Garfield and Grover Cleveland.

John A. Moss became known as common-law John because of his litigation skills and familiarity with legal principles in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Moss, an 1873 graduate of Howard University's Law School, came to the attention of President Rutherford B. Hayes, who appointed him to the post of Justice of the Peace. As such, he became the District of Columbia's first black judicial officer. He was reappointed Justice of the Peace by presidents James A. Garfield and Grover Cleveland, and was the only "colored man" to ride in President Cleveland's inaugural procession in 1885. Moss gained further notoriety during his legal career when he defended a white policeman who had been charged with murdering a black man in Anacostia (a section of Washington, D. C.). This resulted in the policeman's acquittal, and he won the esteem of the police force.

His former home at 2541 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE., in Ward 8 is listed on the African American Heritage Trail.

He died May 5, 1921 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the District. He was survived by four sons and two daughters.

Sources: Cultural Tourism DC; Washington Post; Race Relations in Washington, D.C., 1878-1955: A Photographic Essay by Fredric Miller and Howard Gillette (Nov. 1994); Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944 by J. Clay Smith, Jr