In 1930, he published Hackley & Harrison's hotel and apartment guide for colored travelers, six years before The Negro Motorist Green Book.

The story of his life, A Biography of Edwin Henry Hackley 1859-1940: African-American Attorney and Activist, was published in 2003.

[2] As a child, he had a case of lung fever, a general term used in the 1800s to mean a form of pneumonia, that affected his health into adulthood.

[1] In 1892, he became the editor and publisher of The Statesman (Denver, Colorado), a paper written for the city's African American–Republican community.

[1] Away from the responsibilities of running a newspaper, he wrote dramatic compositions,[4] like the musical comedy play titled The Ambassador.

The movement to promote emigration was formalized with the founding of the American Colonization Society before the Civil War.

[9] Finding the National Afro-American League ineffective meeting their key goals to create more opportunities for advancement and to realize equitable civil rights for African Americans, Hackley led the establishment of the American Citizen's Constitutional Union in Denver on December 8, 1891.

[15] Hackley was a member of the Colored Odd Fellowship, holding the position of grand master by 1898.