J. R. Clifford - Biography

Biography

John Robert ("J.R.") Clifford was born in 1848 in the small town of Williamsport, in what was then Hardy County, Virginia (now in Grant County), near present-day Moorefield. Clifford's parents and grandparents were "free blacks" and had lived in that region of Virginia for several generations. There were no schools for colored children in the area. Clifford's parents sent him to Chicago to attend school, sometime in the early 1860s. In 1864, at the age of fifteen, Clifford enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, and served until 1865. After the Civil War, Clifford learned the barber trade, and then operated a writing school in Ohio and West Virginia. In the early 1870s he enrolled in Harpers Ferry's newly formed Storer College, created to educate the region's African-American population. After earning his degree in 1877, Clifford became a teacher at, and then the principal of, a segregated public school for African Americans in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

In 1882, Clifford began to publish "The Pioneer Press", a newspaper that was distributed nationally to a largely African American audience. He published the newspaper until 1917; it was the longest running weekly newspaper dedicated to African American issues during that time period. In 1887, Clifford became the first African American attorney admitted to the West Virginia State Bar. He practiced law for forty-five years and was active in both state and national politics. Clifford was the President of the National Independent League and the first Vice-President of the American Negro Academy. Clifford was among the founders of the Niagara Movement, with other prominent African-American civil rights leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1906, the Niagara Movement's first American meeting occurred in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The Niagara Movement led to the formation of the NAACP a few years later and is considered to be the cornerstone of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

In 1933, Clifford died at the age of 85 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. His remains are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

J.R. Clifford was nearly forgotten to history until he was rediscovered by Dr. Connie Park Rice, the preeminent African American Historian, of West Virginia University. Dr. Rice's book "Don't Flinch Nor Yield An Inch" recounts the complete and factually correct history of J.R. Clifford.