William R Stewart accomplished much in his life, particularly considering the adversity faced by African Americans in the 19th century and early 20th centuries. Stewart was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania and came to Youngstown as an infant. He left a mark on both law and politics over the course of his long career, as the first African American Attorney in Youngstown and was Youngstown’s first African American state legislator. Stewart practiced law until he was 90 and was declared “the dean of Youngstown’s attorneys” in his Vindicator obituary ["Atty. William R. Stewart, 91, Dies; Dean of City's Lawyers", Youngstown Vindicator (April 5, 1958), p. 1]
A variety of documents relating to William R. Stewart are available online through the Ohio Historical Society’s The African American Experience in Ohio 1850-1970. Some of these items include:
- Address to the Afro-Americans of Ohio, a pamphlet in which Stewart urges African Americans not to be fooled by a circular distributed by the Ohio Democratic party for Ohio gubernatorial candidate John R. McLean, outlining that party’s stance against abolition and suffrage and McLean’s unlawful subjugation of black voters in Cincinatti by hired thugs. Stewart advocates Republican candidate Hon. George K. Nash, who had supported the fifteenth amendment.
- Hon. William R. Stewart, an 1899 Cleveland Gazette article in recognition of the significance of Stewart’s pamphlet in determining the Republican victory in that election.
- Hon. William R. Stewart, another 1899 Cleveland Gazette article, written upon appointment of Stewart to Republican exective committee in Columbus. Stewart had recently come within a few hundred votes of being nominated probate judge of Youngstown, despite comparatively few African American votes in the county. Stewart was instrumental in passage of Ohio anti-lynching laws. He also visited Wilberforce and secured the addition of brick-laying and brick-making to the curriculum of the Industrial department of the university, the position offered to Charles L. Berry, son of Plimpton Ross Berry, who at the time of the article was considering it.
- William R. Stewart, Esq., an 1895 Cleveland Gazette article profiling Stewart.
- William R. Stewart Nominated, an 1895 Cleveland Gazette article on Stewart’s nomination as Republican candidate for state representative.
- Representative William R. Stewart, a photograph of Stewart from the Ohio House of Representatives Photograph Collection.
