George W.F. McMechen

George W. F. McMechen (1871–1961) was a prominent African-American lawyer in Baltimore. Along with his brother-in-law William Ashbie Hawkins he was a leading advocate for African-American civil rights.

McMehen was born in Wheeling, West Virginia on October 29, 1871 to George and Mildred McMechen. He had two sisters, Ethel and Marnie. He first began his law practice in Evansville, Indiana.

In 1891, McMechen enrolled in the first class of what is now Morgan State University where he received his bachelor's degree. In 1895, he enrolled in and received a law degree from Yale Law School.

He married Anna Lee Mason of Sparta, Illinois in 1900 and they had four daughters: Mildred, Edythe, Katherine, and Georgeanna. In 1904 he moved to Baltimore and was admitted to the Maryland bar, where he ran a practice with William Ashbie Hawkins until Hawkins in 1941. Hawkins purchased the residential property of 1834 McCulloh Street in northwest Baltimore. Thrusting himself into the national spotlight as a civil rights activist working towards gains in equal access to quality neighborhoods, more modernly recognized as Fair Housing, the McMechen family, in May of 1910, took up residence there by leasing the property from his partner Hawkins. The McMechens became the first family of African ancestry to move onto a block where European immigrants had previously been the majority. Despite constant threats, harassment, violence and repeated acts of vandalism perpetrated by some of their intolerant neighbors, the McMechen family, and four others of African ancestry, refused to cower or leave their residences.

McMechen's own words in a December 1910 New York Times Sunday Magazine article entitled, Baltimore Tries Drastic plan Of Race Segregation:

"As for property deteriorating on account of our advent into that neighborhood, I know it cannot be so, because all of us are paying higher rentals than the white occupants who immediately preceded us, and there is no better criterion of value than the rent a property brings. I have lived now for several months with white people next door to me on either hand, and we have never had the slightest difficulty. I do not try to associate with them socially any more than they with me, and I am sure none of us have any such desire, nor will any attempt be made on my part."

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