Issac F. Bradley was born in 1862 as a slave, just two years before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite his humble beginnings, he became the first Black graduate of the University of Kansas Law School, an established business and civil rights leader in Kansas City, and a champion for African American rights, nationally and at home.
Bradley’s granddaughter and biographer, Frances Robinson, has spent years researching her grandfather’s legacy which she shares in community publications and in the biography “Recent to Persists” that she authored.
Her book, along with excerpts she shared from the trilogy of publications he wrote, we learn about a community leader whose impact can still be seen and felt in the Kansas City Metro area and across the nation. While he was a respected and recognized national Black leader, this attorney, activist and serial entrepreneur’s greatest impact was in the local Kansas City community and on the lives of the city’s Black residents.
In his 1915 political treatise, “The Reign of Reason,” Bradley described his upbringing in Cambridge, Missouri as one of “hard times.” He never knew his father, who left two weeks after he was born and in a poor and uncomfortable upbringing, and he never had a new hat or a new pair of shoes until he was 17 and he wrote, he “was often short on old ones.”
When he was 19-years-old, despite having very little education he decided to go to Lincoln University after a man in “fitted clothes” with a “demeanor all too different from what [Bradley] had been accustomed to” walked into town.
The man was a graduate of the Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University) in Jefferson City, Missouri. It was the first, and at that time the only, institute of higher education in the state providing education and training to freed slaves. The man had such an effect on Bradley that in 1881 he went to Columbia where he persuaded instructors to let him take classes and work to pay for them.
The experience, while difficult, was ultimately successful. In 1885 he graduated at the top of his class.
Early Legal Success
The summer after he graduated he spent considerable time reading a book “Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising” by Rev. William Simmons. The book contained pictures and short write ups on some of the prominent Black men in America.
From his study of the book, he determined that law would be a good career. That could help him achieve. Since the law schools in Missouri didn’t accept African Americans, he decided to enroll in The University of Kansas Law School in fall 1885.
KU wasn’t without its racist students or instructors and Bradley also struggled with financial woes but his persistence paid off and he became the first African American to graduate from KU Law School in 1887.
After completing law school Bradley opened his law office at 518 Minnesota in Kansas City, and was soon elected Kansas City Kansas Justice of the Peace in 1889. He was the first African -American elected to this position. In 1894 he was appointed A Wyandotte County deputy county attorney, then as 2nd assistant to the county attorney and later as 1st assistant prosecuting attorney.
As he rose in the ranks of the local judicial system, Bradley never abandoned his community and served in numerous local civic and political positions that helped enhance the lives of the residents of Wyandotte County.
Sumner High School
In 1904 Bradley was appointed as attorney for Lewis Gregory, an African American youth accused of murdering Ray Martin, a student at the racially integrated Kansas City Kansas High School. Bradley presented a case of self defense with Gregory pleading not guilty, but an all-White jury found him guilty.
The intense racial climate that surfaced as a result of that high profile case led parents to appeal to the Kansas legislature to implement separate high schools in Kansas City, KS. Bradley spoke in support of maintaining the integrated schools, but the white parents prevailed and the legislature voted to exempt Kansas City from the State law exempting Kansas City, KS from the state law prohibiting racially separated high schools.
That led the Kansas City Board of Education to establish segregated Sumner High School in 1905.
Entrepreneurship
In a brilliant move that helped maintain African-American economic Independence in Kansas City, Bradley helped form the American Commercial League Coal and Feed Company. By pooling their resources, this group of Black entrepreneurs were able to buy essential goods like coal for heating, feed for livestock, flour and groceries in bulk and at lower prices. By doing this they were able to cut out the middle man and ensure a regular supply of these essential items for African Americans.
In 1898, after identifying the need for an African American hospital, Bradley, along with several prominent members of his community, Bradley was one of four founding members of Douglass Hospital he hospital, in addition to serving as a medical facility, also served as a training college for African American nurses. He served as president of the board of Douglass Hospital for years. The hospital remained open until 1977.
Bradley also maintained and operated several teams of services.that he was able to rent out for passenger transport as well as hauling and delivery. He also started with two other community leaders, one who was a pharmacist, the Home Drug Company, which became one of the largest drugstores of its time. He, along with other community leaders, including Junious Groves and J.W. Jones, in the creation of the Kansas City Ks, KS Casket and Embalming Company.
He was also cofounder, manager and editor of the Wyandotte Echo, a weekly newspaper.
Civil Rights
Early on, Bradley was involved in the national movement for Black civil rights. He was an original member of the African American Council formed in 1898 in Washington D.C. to unify Black leaders and activists in the fight against racial injustice. It was one of the earliest organizations to directly challenge racial discrimination and segregation.
He was also invited by social activities W.E. B. DuBois to be one of the “original twenty-nine” members of the Niagara Movement. The group met in 1905 in Ontario Canada, at the foot of the Niagara Falls to organize for civil rights. The group drew up a manifesto calling for full civil liberties, abolition of racial discrimination and recognition of human brotherhood. The group was the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
In Kansas City,KS, he was a founding member of the local NAACP Chapter and helped. He also helped form the Kansas Civic League. He helped sponsor a drive to construct the first monument in the United States to abolitionist John Brown. The statue was placed at the intersection of 27th and Sewell, which at that time was in front of Ward Hall on the campus of Western University in 1911.
In 1913 He was the founder of the Civic League of which he was founder and president. The Civic League was an organization of 12 Black men and 12 White men who were dedicated to the task of improving race relations in the City. The group was active in promoting Black voter registration and empowering African Americans to be more involved in local government.
On behalf of the Civic League, he sent a letter to the Attorney General of Kansas condemning the showing of the 1916 silent film The birth of the nation. The organization continued to lobby for better social and living conditions for African Americans. The Civic League remains a strong civic organization in the Kansas City Metro area.
His Family
Shortly after law school, Bradley married Mamie Belle Johnson from Lawrence. They had two children, Ruth and Issac Jr., who became a partner in his father’s law firm. Issac Jr, was Robinson’s father. He died in 1938.
“[Bradley] was the first to achieve what he achieved, but he never wanted to be last.,’ said Robinson of her grandfather’s accomplishments.”
Readers can find more information about Isaac Franklin Bradley’s life and work in Robinson’s 2018 book “Reasons to Persist: Life and Times of Isaac Franklin Bradley,” is available on Amazon.