before graduation, Johnson told his classmates that "we are as cordially received and as finely
treated" at the law school as at Lincoln University.47 "The Graduating students themselves, by
the good judgment and tact of the two colored ones, and the kindly feeling of a majority of the
white ones, in return, prevented any color discrimination in seating the guests at the graduation

**4S

exercises.

Although the law school program had been extended to three years in 1884 when the new
law school building was completed, and the junior faculty added, both Cummings and Johnson
completed the course in two years and graduated in the spring of 1889.49 Their graduation was
cause for celebration in the black community. A testimonial dinner was held at the Madison
Street Presbyterian Church. J. S. Davis presided, and Mrs. Ruth Colleit and attorney E. J.
Waring made the presentation address as the new graduates received law books.50 Johnson
graduated 3rd and Cummings graduated 10th in a class of 33.51 Judge Phelps even asked one of
them to assist him in preparation of his book on equity jurisprudence.52 In November of 1889,
Cummings and Johnson successfully represented a colored man accused of assaulting a white girl
in Baltimore County.53

In the fall of 1889 two more black students enrolled - James L. Dozier, another graduate
of Lincoln, and William Ashbie Hawkins a graduate of Centenary Bible Institute (later Morgan
College).54      At the same time, the faculty of the Medical School voted to deny admission to
black applicants to that school.55

1889 was a bad year for blacks in Maryland: Republicans and reform Democrats sought
to upset the entrenched Democratic machine by campaigning on a platform of Civil Service
reforms. Their combined forces had succeeded in blocking the legislative program of the regular
Democrats.56 In the fall of 1889, Senator German launched a campaign designed to weaken
support for the racially mixed independent Democrat-Republican coalition by invoking the
specter of black rule:

From one end of this land to another the question between the
white and black races is uppermost in the minds of the people. It
was not started by the democratic party. We do not make war on
the colored people. They are here among us, and we have tried to
advance them as far as we could. We will educate them, treat them
kindly, but we have determined that this government was made by
white men and shall be ruled by white men as long as a republic
lasts.57

Dean Poe was growing closer to Senator Gorman. He had always been a Democrat, but
since 1887 he had openly thrown his support to German's cause.58 In view of the racial tone of
the '89 campaign, life at the law school must have been particularly difficult for Dozier and
Hawkins. Nearly all of the ninety-nine students at the law school in the winter of'89-'90 signed a

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