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125 Years Late, Chinese Lawyer Earns Right to Practice Law in California

Published

11 years ago

March 24, 2015

By Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee

Acknowledging a “sordid chapter” in state history, the California Supreme Court ruled last week that a Chinese immigrant denied the right to practice law in California 125 years ago because of his race should be licensed posthumously.

The unanimous ruling came in response to a petition filed in 2014 by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association at UC Davis.

The petition asked the high court to “right this historic wrong” by ordering the late Hong Yen Chang admitted to the State Bar of California.

“More than a century later, the legal and policy underpinnings of our 1890 decision have been discredited,” said Monday’s unsigned court opinion. “Even if we cannot undo history, we can acknowledge it and, in so doing, accord a full measure of recognition to Chang’s pathbreaking efforts to become the first lawyer of Chinese descent in the United States.”

The court’s ruling further stated that California’s courts and people “were denied Chang’s services as a lawyer. But we need not be denied his example as a pioneer for a more inclusive legal profession.”

UC Davis law professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin, who acted as faculty adviser to the law students on the project, called Monday’s ruling gratifying.

“I had known about this matter for 20 years. In 2011, the students and I began working on it. Now, it is very gratifying to see such a wonderful, scholarly ruling from the Supreme Court.”

Chin called it “particularly poignant that this historic decision comes from what is perhaps the most diverse state Supreme Court in the country, at the request of the UC Davis APALSA future lawyers, many of whom would have been barred under the 1890 decision.”

The court is made up of three Asian Americans, two white women, a Latino and a black.

“This is a historic moment for all Chinese Americans in California because a terrible wrong has been righted today by the California Supreme Court,” said Rachelle Chong, a California lawyer and a grandniece of Chang, in a statement released by the UCD law school.

Chang came to the United States at age 13 in 1872, as part of a program to teach Chinese youths about the West. He graduated from Phillips Academy in Massachusetts in 1879 and attended undergraduate school at Yale University. He received a Columbia Law School degree in 1886.

Two years later, he was licensed by the New York bar, becoming “the only regularly admitted Chinese lawyer in this country,” according to a front-page story in The New York Times on May 18, 1888.

But Chang hit a wall when he relocated to California and sought admission to its bar. A state statue allowed only citizens or people who were eligible for citizenship to practice law.

The state high court denied Chang’s motion, holding that natives of China could not become citizens under the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The naturalization certificate that Chang had obtained in New York, it said, “was issued without authority of law, and is void, it being conceded that the holder of it is a person of Mongolian nativity.”

In this week’s opinion, the court noted that understanding the state’s original denial of his right to practice law “requires a candid reckoning with a sordid chapter of our state and national history.”

Chang returned to China in 1907 and carved out successful careers in foreign service and finance. He later returned to California and died in Berkeley in 1926.

At the time of his death, the Chinese Exclusion Act and California’s citizenship requirement for State Bar membership were still in effect.

Led by partner Jeffrey Bleich, the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP represented – without compensation – the UC Davis law students in their presentation to the Supreme Court.

The students argued that admitting Chang “would serve the public interest,” noting that the 1890 opinion bearing his name “closely associates Mr. Chang with this state’s and the nation’s history of discrimination against Asian Americans.”

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COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

4 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 3 – 9, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 3 – 9, 2026

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4 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

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Study: Waiting Lists for Child Care Assistance Nearly Doubled

BLACKPRESS USA NEWSWIRE — “Since the expiration of tens of billions of dollars in federal child care funding in 2023 and 2024, an already fragile child care system has been pushed even closer to the brink.”
The post Study: Waiting Lists for Child Care Assistance Nearly Doubled appeared first on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 days ago

June 8, 2026

Oakland Post

By National Women’s Law Center

The National Women’s Law Center released its annual State Child Care Assistance Policies report, finding that the number of children placed on waiting lists for federally funded child care assistance nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025 — and that number has only continued to grow.

The report serves as a key resource for state lawmakers, advocates, and policymakers by tracking state child care assistance policies and identifying where states are strengthening support for families and early educators — or falling behind.

“This deeply troubling increase in the number of children on child care waiting lists is the result of a failure to invest in this crucial sector,” said Karen Schulman, senior director of state child care policy and author of the report. “Since the expiration of tens of billions of dollars in federal child care funding in 2023 and 2024, an already fragile child care system has been pushed even closer to the brink.”

Key findings in the report related to waiting lists for child care assistance include:

• 17 states had waiting lists or a freeze on intake for child care assistance in February 2025, up from 13 states in February 2024.

• Approximately 106,700 children nationwide were added to waiting lists between February 2024 and February 2025, bringing the total to 225,500 children in February 2025 — a 90 percent increase compared to February 2024.

• The numbers climbed even further between February 2025 and summer/fall 2025, with more than 175,000 additional children added to state waiting lists in just a few months — a 78 percent increase.

• At least seven states newly began placing families on waiting lists or freezing intake, while at least 10 additional states saw their waiting lists grow, after February 2025.

The report also includes state-by-state data on key child care assistance policies, including income eligibility limits, parent copayments, provider payment rates, and eligibility policies for parents searching for work.

Click the link to learn more: Warning Signs: State Child Care Assistance Policies 2025.

The post Study: Waiting Lists for Child Care Assistance Nearly Doubled appeared first on BlackPressUSA.