Isaac Lawrence Purcell (born July 17, 1857) was an American lawyer.

[1][2][3] Booker T. Washington noted he was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court and had cases before it.

He studied at the University of South Carolina after it was desegregated but was excluded after segregation was restored and studied the law privately in Palatka, Florida.

[2] He and attorney J. Douglas Wetmore challenged the law segregating streetcars in Florida as unconstitutional.

It was one of the only wins against segregation laws during the Jim Crow era and attempts to expand its reach were not successful as the same court ruled that there was equality in other instances of segregation where blacks served blacks and white served whites.