George Washington Bryant
Conrad (1867-1947)
President, National Catholic
Interracial Federation, 1932-1947
Attorney, Preservationist
Born on 22 June
1867 in Xenia, Greene County, Ohio, George W. B. Conrad was an attorney who
worked for fifty-two years for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He began his career
with the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad (predecessor
of the PRR) railroad as a messenger at the Union Depot in Richmond, Indiana in
1882. In 1885, he became a stenographer in the Superintendent’s Office under J.
T. Miller. In 1887, he became stenographer and operator in the Engineer’s
Office. He was appointed to the same capacity in the freight division office in
1888.
He later left
that position to enter Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio. He then entered the
Law School at the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1902. He
returned to the railroad as a company attorney.
He was very
active in community and civic affairs in Cincinnati. He spearheaded
preservation of the residence of author Harriet Beecher Stowe. He was a founder
and President of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Home Memorial Association. He ran
for the Ohio State House of Representatives in 1938. Conrad was perhaps best
known for his active involvement in the Catholic Church. He served as President
of the National Catholic Interracial Federation from 1932 until his passing in
1947.
The Catholic
Interracial Federation was the brainchild of Father William Markoe, S.J., who
along with his fellow Jesuit, Father John LaFarge, stood at the forefront of
the Church’s stance on racial justice. The Federation grew out of a split
within the Federated Colored Catholics, a black-led organization presided over
by Professor Thomas Wyatt Turner, a member of the science faculty at Howard
University. The Federation had chapters across the nation, particularly in the
South and Midwest.
His father,
Thomas A. Conrad, was a native of either Illinois or North Carolina. He was a
private in Company B, 5th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery. His mother,
Elizabeth Jackson, was a native of Ohio. They were married on 20 May 1866 in
Xenia, Ohio. Thomas A. Conrad died on 17 September 1924 at the National
Military Home in Jefferson, Ohio. Elizabeth Jackson Conrad died on 31 December
1875 in Xenia, Ohio. Thomas was married for a second time to Mary A. Edwards on
18 July 1879.
On 8 June 1910,
he married Beatrice Adelaide Cox, a teacher, who was the daughter of Alfred Cox
and Cora McKnight. George and his wife Beatrice had a daughter, Elizabeth
Conrad, who like her mother became an educator. She was first married to
Taswell Thompson, a marriage which produced one son, Taswell Thompson, Jr. She
later married Melvin W. Corbin.
Over the course
of his eighty years as an attorney, active layman, and preservationist, George
Washington Bryant Conrad enjoyed the esteem of those in his community of all
races. He died on 11 December 1947 in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio.
Sources: Dabney, Wendell
Phillips. Cincinnati's Colored Citizens:
Historical, Sociological and Biographical (Negro Universities Press, 1926)
242; Smith, J. Clay. Emancipation: The
Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944 (University of Pennsylvania Press,
1999) 412-413.
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