James Monroe Trotter was born into slavery in 1842, the son of an enslaved black woman and her white master.
Trotter escaped with his mother and siblings on the Underground Railroad to Ohio where he was educated as a teacher.
In 1863, Trotter enlisted in the Union Army. He became the first man of color to achieve the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.
In 1868, he married and moved to Boston where he became the first man of color to work at the US Post Office. (He is the father of the father of civil-rights leader William Monroe Trotter.)
In 1878, he published Music and Some Highly Musical People, the first comprehensive study of music ever written in the United States.
In 1887, President Grover Cleveland appointed Trotter to a position in the Recorder of Deeds Office, making Trotter one of the earliest African Americans to hold a position in this office along with Frederick Douglass.
Trotter died on February 26, 1892.
_________
Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by writer Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year's profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.
