[2] He escaped to Boston in the 1830s,[2] became one of the first black lawyers in the U.S., and was among the very few African Americans admitted to the bar before the Civil War.
[3] Others include Robert Morris (lawyer) in Massachusetts, 1847; George Boyer Vashon[4] in New York, 1848; and John Mercer Langston in Ohio, 1854.
Due to the anti-black socio-political culture of the time, as well as Bradley's confrontational activism against racial injustice, he was denied admission.
[6] He eventually moved to Beaufort, South Carolina, where he continued to practice law and serve his Georgia clients.
[2] He became an important leader and fought for the rights of African Americans, demanding reparations of land and cash from Whites after emancipation from the Civil War.
Bradley was not afraid to stand out and always wore “flashy, fancy clothing, and usually donned a beaver-skinned hat and white kid gloves”.
[8] As a leader of the Lincoln Council of the Union League in Chatham City, he established a new government and decided to run for senatorship.
Soon after his arrival in Savannah, Georgia, in 1865, Bradley began to openly criticize the treatment of blacks during slavery, and demanded reparations to the year of enslavement.
[6] Bradley fought against segregation with a petition in Federal Court requesting an injunction of operations against the Baltimore City Passenger Railway.
[9] After the original petitioners withdrew their complaints, Bradley filed an amended petition against the railway company alleging “that the street car company refused to let him ride in violation of his privileges and immunities under Article IV, took private property without compensation, and maintained a common nuisance in violation of privileges granted from the government for use of its highways without regard to color or race.
The Black Power Movement is dated to begin during the 1960s, yet many of Bradley's demonstrations and policies called for the liberation and escalation of the negro population.
Very uniquely in history, he “Led riots against white citizens and police.”[11] His policies were radical and fairly progressive for his time.
Bradley threatened that “servant girls would burn the beds of white daughters and wives and their fathers and husbands would stop fighting to find them.”[13] By targeting the weakest part of the family dynamic it was a for-sure way to ensure that they are not met with resistance.
He accused the city police and the mayor's court of discrimination toward blacks [and] charged the Savannah Freedmen's Bureau Court with similar irregularities and requested inauguration of appeal procedures, offering his services as judge...."[14] His name is listed on the historical marker the "Original 33", a plaque listing the first 33 African-American members of the Georgia General Assembly who were elected to office in 1868.