Frederick L. McGhee becomes the first African American admitted to practice at the bar of the state supreme court. Born enslaved in Mississippi in 1861, as an adult McGhee took on civil rights cases and served as an emissary to Catholic prelates in Minnesota. In 1905 he helped develop the organizational precursor to the NAACP, the Niagara Conference. He died on September 19, 1912, in St. Paul.