[1] In 1867, she won one of the earliest Civil Rights lawsuits for being denied first class passage on a steamship traveling between Beaufort and Charleston, South Carolina.
Whipper wrote and published the biography of the abolitionist, nationalist, and highest ranking Black commissioned officer in the Union army, Martin R. Delany (1812-1885).
[2] Published under the name Frank A. Rollin in 1868, The Life and Public Services of Martin R. Delany, was the first full-length biography written by an African American.
William Rollin (1815–1880) was a biracial descendant of the De Caradeuc family, which had left Saint Domingue in 1792 to escape the insurrection of enslaved people against the French colonial government.
Rollin was a devout Catholic and ensured that his daughters received an excellent education through private tutors and parish schools.
Enriched by the political and intellectual opportunities she encountered in Philadelphia, Rollin began her career as a writer and activist for civil rights and women's suffrage.
Rollin became a teacher at a school sponsored by the Freedmen's Bureau, a U.S. government agency that aided distressed freed slaves during the Reconstruction era.
[4] In 1867, after being denied first-class passage on the steamer Pilot Boy between Beaufort and Charleston, South Carolina, Rollin sued W.T.
[6][1][2] Rollin returned to South Carolina at the end of July to take a job in the law offices of William James Whipper.
Whipper had moved to Columbia after the war and just won election to the state legislature shortly before employing Rollin.
Known for their intelligence and charm, their home in Columbia became a gathering place for the social and political elite including Republican Party leaders and their wives.
The following year, Charlotte presided over the first meeting of the South Carolina Branch of the American Woman Suffrage Association in the Whipper's home.
[10] Her diary "allowed a rare glimpse into the social life of Columbia, the South Carolina capital, and recorded the anti-black, anti-Republican violence then ongoing in the state during Reconstruction."
At the end of July in 1868, Rollin returned from Boston to South Carolina to take a job in the law offices of William James Whipper.
Whipper had moved to Columbia after the war and just won election to the state legislature shortly before employing Rollin.
"[1] Rollin gave birth to five children, three of which survived to adulthood: Alicia (1869–1869), Winifred (1870–1907), Ionia (1872–1953), Mary Elizabeth (1874–1875), and their son Leigh (1876–1975).
After teaching in Washington DC public schools for ten years, Ionia Rollin Whipper attended and graduated from Howard University College of Medicine, where she "became one of the first black women physicians in the United States.
In addition to working and assisting her children with their educations, Rollin continued to write and was involved in politics while living in Washington DC.