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In the summer of 1905, a group of black intellectuals led by W. E. B. Du Bois gathered in Niagara Falls, Ontario, with the intention of launching a movement for racial equality in the United States. Near the splendor of the Canadian falls, where the group found lodging, they made plans for the 鈥渕ighty current鈥� of protest ahead. On Thanksgiving Day that same year, they sponsored nationwide memorial services for three 鈥渇riends of freedom鈥�: William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Albion Tourg茅e.

Garrison holds a secure place in American history as a pioneering white abolitionist. Douglass, as an escaped slave who rose to international fame as an abolitionist leader, writer, and orator, enjoys much greater renown. But who was Albion Tourg茅e?

Tourg茅e, who died in early 1905, was 鈥渙ne of the most colorful of Rochester alumni,鈥� University historian Arthur May once wrote. A Civil War veteran who fought at the First Battle of Bull Run, Tourg茅e migrated south after the war as part of a larger movement of northerners who sought both economic opportunities and a chance to help transform the region from a slaveholding to a 鈥渇ree labor鈥� society. As a North Carolina attorney and judge allied with the self-described Radical Republicans, he worked to forge political alliances between blacks and poor whites and became a frequent target of a new and rapidly expanding white supremacist organization called the Ku Klux Klan.

When the Radical Republican vision for Reconstruction failed in the late 1870s, he turned to writing. His 1879 novel A Fool鈥檚 Errand, which featured graphic depictions of Klan violence, sold an estimated 200,000 copies鈥攎aking it a bestseller at the time鈥攁nd invited widespread comparisons to Harriet Beecher Stowe鈥檚 Uncle Tom鈥檚 Cabin. By that time a household name, Tourg茅e found support among black journalists and political leaders who recruited him to help draft the nation鈥檚 first antilynching law. Then, at the tail end of his career, a black civic organization in New Orleans sought him out as the lead attorney for Homer Plessy鈥攖he mixed-race shoemaker who became one of the most famous plaintiffs in Supreme Court history when the court ruled against him in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, enshrining the infamous 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� doctrine in American law.

Tourg茅e is an obscure figure in American history, considering the breadth of his work and his fame in his prime. College students were once introduced to Tourg茅e through A Fool鈥檚 Errand. Larry Hudson, a professor of history at Rochester who specializes in African American history and teaches on the Civil War and Reconstruction, says 鈥渂ack in the early 1980s, [the book] was a really big deal. But the turn to black studies, and the search for black sources, was gathering steam.鈥� Writings by people like Harriet Jacobs, a former slave, or Charlotte Forten Grimk茅, a free-black activist who taught in the South, began to take center stage in what Hudson calls 鈥渁 crammed 鈥榤ust-read鈥� list.鈥�

Tourg茅e was also on the losing side of almost every major battle he waged. History鈥檚 losers are often forgotten, and for a long time, that was true in Tourg茅e鈥檚 case. But more recently, his losses seem only to have enhanced his reputation.

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Since roughly the early 2000s, Tourg茅e鈥檚 ideas have been parsed in books and dissected at conferences. One biographer has credited him with forging a doctrine of color-blind law. Another has pointed to the unusual depth of his commitment as a white ally to African Americans.

As Americans continue to grapple with race and its implications, Tourg茅e鈥檚 arguments in Plessy seem especially forward-looking. Pointing to his fair-skinned client, he underscored the indeterminacy of race. In explaining the function of racial segregation, he seemed to anticipate 21st-century descriptions of white privilege.

Those closer to his boyhood hometown of Kingsville, Ohio, have also taken note. In 2015, residents and students and faculty at Kent State University- Ashtabula secured a historical marker outside Tourg茅e鈥檚 boyhood home to honor the local hero who risked his life working to write civil rights into law in the post鈥揅ivil War South. Before the group began the effort, few people in the town had ever heard Tourg茅e鈥檚 name.

Born in 1838 in Williamsville, Ohio, Albion Winegar Tourg茅e grew up in an area that was a center of abolitionist thought and agitation. But his own political awakening began in Rochester, during the heated election season of 1860, and later, as a Union soldier in the South.

Like many young men en route to higher education, Tourg茅e emerged from his teens with his sights set on the nation鈥檚 oldest and most established institution, Harvard. To attend, he needed familial support. From his father, with whom he had a contentious relationship, he didn鈥檛 receive it. In the fall of 1859, he enrolled instead at the 人妻少妇专区.

The University was founded in 1850 during a surge in higher education. It was the first higher education institution to grace a city that had been growing and thriving since the Erie Canal鈥檚 completion in 1825 established it as the nation鈥檚 first boomtown. The City of Rochester was already an intellectual center, with Douglass, who published his newspaper downtown, part of a nexus of abolitionists and supporters of women鈥檚 rights who frequented the city and drew large crowds to their lectures at the majestic Corinthean Hall. Located in the United States Hotel building on Buffalo Street (now West Main), just around the corner from the hall, the University was at the epicenter of the city鈥檚 vibrant intellectual life.

Tourg茅e dove into his new college life, joining the fraternity Psi Upsilon and the chess club. Faced with the choice of two popular literary societies鈥攖he Delphic (serving 鈥淲isdom and Reason鈥�) and the Pithonian Society (serving 鈥淭he Beautiful and the Good鈥�)鈥攈e chose the latter. In his role as class poet, he demonstrated the talents for writing and oratory that would propel him forward in his civic and literary career.

Early on, he attracted the notice of President Martin Anderson. When Tourg茅e aced the Greek portion of his entrance exam, Anderson, an adamant proponent of the Classical curriculum, granted him sophomore status. But Anderson was less pleased when Tourg茅e founded the 人妻少妇专区 Wide Awakes in the fall of 1860.

The Wide Awake movement, which began earlier that year, attracted young and militant voters through its signature torchlit marches for the cause of abolition, the Republican Party, and Abraham Lincoln鈥檚 candidacy. Chapters spread in towns throughout the Northeast and in places like Ohio, where Tourg茅e鈥檚 fianc茅e, Emma Kilbourne, greeted the Wide Awakes with enthusiasm. Tourg茅e had shown little interest in politics up until that point, but was likely influenced by Kilbourne, as well as Anderson鈥檚 recent decision to ban political clubs from the University. In an early indication of the principled contrarianism that would help define his career, Tourg茅e responded to the ban by founding a University chapter of the Wide Awakes and recruiting some 70 members. After Anderson brought a police officer to confront the group, Tourg茅e and the other members agreed to drop the 人妻少妇专区 from their name.

Anderson wasn鈥檛 unusual among antislavery northerners in his wariness toward the showy young activists. He was primarily a nationalist whose interest in preserving the Union outweighed his moral objection to slavery. When Confederate gunmen fired on federal troops at Fort Sumter in April 1861, those disagreements faded into the background. Anderson made an impassioned speech to students in support of the Union cause. Tourg茅e was among the students who enlisted.

The beginning of Tourg茅e鈥檚 military service marked the end of his time at Rochester, though his relationships with Anderson and with his brothers in Psi Upsilon would continue through most of his life. Like other students who interrupted their education to join the war effort, he was granted a degree in absentia, in his case in the spring of 1862.

Tourg茅e served two tours of duty, the second after he had been severely injured. Barely a month after he joined the 27th New York Volunteers, he suffered a serious spinal wound during the Union retreat from the First Battle of Bull Run. Partially paralyzed, he was ruled unfit for continued military service and returned to Ohio, where he began to study law and served as a Union Army recruiter. When he regained his mobility, he was permitted to re-enlist as a first lieutenant in the 105th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

There he was deeply influenced by the Western Reserve abolitionists who made up most of the group. His allegiance to abolition鈥攁t first abstract and intellectual鈥攂ecame concrete and visceral once he began interacting with African Americans for the first time. The infantry was stationed in Kentucky, where Tourg茅e witnessed not only slavery, but also the racism that tightly constricted the lives of free blacks. In a January 1863 letter to his Psi Upsilon brothers back at Rochester, Tourg茅e showed that he had undergone an almost complete transformation in his understanding of the war鈥檚 aims.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 care a rag for 鈥榯he Union as it was,鈥� 鈥� he wrote. 鈥淚 want and fight for the Union 鈥榖etter than it was.鈥� 鈥� Calling for 鈥渁 thorough and complete revolution and renovation,鈥� he argued in favor of a society free not only from slavery, but also from any laws that subjugated black Americans.

Tourg茅e would be a significant participant in that revolution during the Reconstruction period. After discharge from the military at the end of the war, he returned to Ohio, obtained a license to practice law, and moved with Emma, whom he married in 1863, to Greensboro, North Carolina, an area with a Quaker population and notable loyalist sentiment before the war.

With his moral passion, intellect, and considerable oratorical skills, he rose rapidly in state politics. Once elected to the North Carolina constitutional convention, he became an influential delegate and later, a superior court judge.

He and Emma also worked to found freedmen鈥檚 schools. One of them operated on a nursery farm in which Albion and two Rochester classmates, Seneca Kuhn, Class of 1861, and Reuben Pettengill, Class of 1862, had invested. While the three men purchased the nursery as a business venture, the Tourg茅es鈥� primary interest was turning the nursery into an instrument of black uplift and a model of their shared vision of labor relations. The Tourg茅es, who hired and taught black workers, found themselves at odds with Kuhn and Pettengill over the workers鈥� conditions of employment.

The business was not doing well. It suffered from its association with Tourg茅e, who was reviled for his political work outside the Radical Republican circles in which he ran.

A Wilmington, North Carolina, newspaper description of him was typical: 鈥淭his Tourg茅e is the meanest looking man it has ever been our misfortune to meet. The pirate; the cutthroat; the despicable, mean, cowardly, crawling, sneaking villain have been portrayed by nature, with a master hand, in every lineament of his countenance. The mark of infamy is stamped indelibly on his brow in the shape of a large protuberance that strikes the beholder with ineffable disgust.鈥� Barely a year after the nursery venture began, it dissolved.

Tourg茅e was a frequent target of the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in Tennessee at the end of the Civil War and spread rapidly throughout the South. The group was especially active in areas with the strongest alliances between blacks and whites. Threats on his and Emma鈥檚 lives weighed heavily on the household which by 1870 included their newborn baby girl, Aimee, and a 13-year-old former slave named Adaline Patillo, whom the couple had adopted. Tourg茅e wrote often to Anderson, expressing his fears and frustrations.

鈥淵ou have no idea, you can have none, of the wholesale demoralization of our society,鈥� he wrote to Anderson in the spring of 1870. 鈥淚n my district鈥攃omprising eight counties鈥攖he following crimes have been committed by armed ruffians in disguise鈥攎asked and shrouded鈥攄uring the past 10 months: 12 murders, 9 rapes, 11 arsons, 6 men castrated鈥攁nd any number of houses broken open and men and women dragged from their beds and beaten or otherwise cruelly outraged. No one has ever been convicted for any of these offenses, and probably never will be.鈥�

Tourg茅e complained bitterly as he witnessed the North鈥檚 retreat from the vision of racial equality codified into federal law with the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. His darkest predictions came to pass in 1877, when the Republican party agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South and officially end its commitment to enforcing racial equality there. Defeated and demoralized, Tourg茅e stepped back from political and civic life, and turned to writing.

Between 1879, when he published A Fool鈥檚 Errand, and the end of the 1880s, Tourg茅e wrote more than 10 works of fiction and nonfiction. The University recognized him with an honorary degree in 1880. Yet the most significant chapter of his civic career was still to come.

The publication of A Fool鈥檚 Errand led to an offer to write a column in the Republican party newspaper the Chicago Inter Ocean. In the column, called 鈥淎 Bystander鈥檚 Notes,鈥� Tourg茅e railed over the tactics of violence and intimidation used by Southern white leaders to suppress black political participation. The column was distributed widely in the African American press, where its readers included the pioneering journalist and antilynching activist Ida B. Wells.

Lynching was on the rise in the 1880s, and increasingly took place in broad daylight. In the early 1890s, Wells and Harry Smith, editor of the Cleveland Gazette and a member of the Ohio state legislature, sought Tourg茅e鈥檚 help to draft an antilynching law. Smith shepherded the bill through the Ohio legislature. Signed into law in 1896, it became a model for similar laws in nine other states and for the NAACP in the national antilynching campaign it launched early in the next century.

鈥淎 Bystander鈥檚 Notes鈥� led to another fortuitous collaboration. When the governor of Louisiana signed into law 鈥淎n Act to promote the comfort of passengers鈥濃�攎andating 鈥渆qual but separate accommodations鈥� in railroad cars鈥攁 group of men of color in New Orleans came together to form the Citizens鈥� Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. 鈥淲e know we have a friend in you and we know your ability is beyond question,鈥� they wrote to Tourg茅e, asking him to become their lead attorney.

Tourg茅e and two other attorneys for the committee forged a plan of civil disobedience to set the legal test in motion. Tourg茅e argued forcefully that the ideal plaintiff would be racially ambiguous in appearance. His colleagues concurred, after which they secured the agreement of Homer Plessy鈥攁 mixed-race shoemaker so fair skinned as to easily 鈥減ass鈥� for white鈥攖o purchase a ticket for intrastate travel and seat himself in a white-designated car. Events unfolded as planned. With a quiet hand from the railway, which had no desire to enforce the new law, Plessy was arrested and charged with violating the state鈥檚 Separate Car Act.

In just a few years, the case reached the US Supreme Court, where Tourg茅e challenged the law as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment鈥檚 guarantee of equal protection. It was a potential landmark case, because the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, was intended to nationalize the Bill of Rights, which until then had prohibited only the federal government from violating basic citizenship rights.

The law had been drafted to ward off constitutional challenges by requiring railway companies to provide equivalent accommodations in its black and white cars. The law鈥檚 defenders contended that racial separation was designed to enhance the comfort of black as well as white passengers. In arguments before the Court, Tourg茅e focused on the broader social context of the law. In a society in which 鈥渟ix-sevenths of the population are white, nineteen-twentieths of the property of the country is owned by white people,鈥� and 鈥渘inety-nine hundredths of the business opportunities are in the control of white people,鈥� he wrote in his brief before the Court, it simply wasn鈥檛 convincing to maintain that the law was equally intended to serve black customers. Instead, Tourg茅e argued, the law codified racial hierarchy.

Tourg茅e devoted great attention to Plessy鈥檚 mixed heritage鈥攕even-eighths European and one-eighth African, the plaintiff reported鈥攁nd its implications for efforts to assign people to racial categories. By custom, whites considered Plessy black. But how could any railway operator know for sure? 鈥淚s not the question of race, scientifically considered, very often impossible of determination? Is not the question of race, legally considered, one impossible to be determined, in the absence of statutory definition?鈥� he asked the Court. 鈥淛ustice is pictured blind and her daughter, the Law, ought at least to be color-blind,鈥� he wrote.

In the end, only one justice ruled in Plessy鈥檚 favor.

The Plessy case was Tourg茅e鈥檚 most spectacular defeat. Later he and his allies would face criticism for an overly ambitious gamble that set progress back immeasurably by enabling the highest court to place its stamp of approval on segregation.

Tourg茅e had been well aware of the risks. After he began working with the Citizens鈥� Committee, he helped set up a national organization to document the spread of Jim Crow laws in the South. The hope was that the association, with the help of a sympathetic northern press, would sway public opinion sufficiently to influence just enough justices for a majority.

As it turned out, it would take another half century for the court to declare Jim Crow laws unconstitutional. In 1954, a decades-long legal campaign against segregation waged by the NAACP culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The unanimous decision, in declaring segregation laws unconstitutional, laid waste to Plessy鈥檚 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� doctrine.

Having viewed the Supreme Court of his day as an obstacle to liberty and equality, Tourg茅e would have been heartened by the decision. But having seen the power of the resistance against racial equality, he would likely have been unsurprised that Brown did not, by itself, end segregation or bring about racial equality under law.

The most far-reaching progress toward racial equality came about only after a mass movement. Forged by African Americans, inspired by the Radical Republican vision of Reconstruction, and joined by white allies who were willing as well to risk their lives for racial equality, the civil rights movement of the 1960s could claim concrete steps toward 鈥渁 Union better than it was.鈥�

But as the country continues to struggle with its legacy of racial inequality, the 鈥渢horough and complete revolution鈥� that Tourg茅e longed for still awaits.