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The "Colored Barrister": The Short Life And Tragic Death Of James Robinson Johnston, 1876-1915, Barry Cahill

Dalhousie Law Journal

The mortal remains of James Robinson Johnston, Nova Scotia's first Black lawyer, lie buried in the family plot at Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax. The gravestone epigraphy records that he was a Good Templar, a Freemason and an Oddfellow; his Dalhousie University degrees (one of them inaccurately); and the fact that he died a mere nine days short of his thirty-ninth birthday. "Gone but not forgotten" reads the epitaph, much less ironically now - in view of the fact that the recently established Chair in Black Canadian Studies at his alma mater has been named in Johnston's honour-than it ever …