Richard Theodore Greener (1844–1922) was a pioneering African-American scholar, excelling in elocution, philosophy, law and classics in the Reconstruction era.

[1] Within three years, he had also graduated from law school at the University of South Carolina, only to also be hired as its first Black professor, after briefly serving as associate editor for the New National Era, a newspaper owned and edited by Frederick Douglass.

[7] Phillips Academy also named a central quadrangle after Greener in 2018, the same year the University of South Carolina honored him with a statue.

Only months after moving to Boston, Greener's father Richard Wesley left to participate in the California gold rush and never returned.

Mr. Greener's history is that of a persevering young man who has succeeded in living down the prejudices against his race and color, and attaining by industry, ability, and good character, a position of which he may well feel proud.

[2] In 1874, he published Charles Sumner, the Idealist, Statesman and Scholar, an address he had delivered on June 29th of that year, at the university's "Public Day" (commencement exercises), in tribute to the recently deceased senator from Massachusetts.

[12] His responsibilities included assisting in the departments of Latin and Greek and teaching classes in International Law and the Constitution of the United States.

[3] In June 1877, following the end of Reconstruction in South Carolina, the university was closed by Wade Hampton III.

Greener and the rising generation of Black leaders advocated moving away from political parties and white allies, while Douglass denounced them as "croakers.

"[13] Greener, who nonetheless still respected Douglass's achievements, helped organize a major convention to present Black grievances to the nation.

Decades had passed since the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and years since the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, but these advances had been rolled back or left unenforced, while Jim Crow laws spread in the South.

Douglass accused Greener of writing anonymous attacks motivated by "ambition and jealousy" that charged the older leader with "trading off the colored vote of the country for office."

Greener wrote that there were two Douglasses, "the one velvety, deprecatory, apologetic — the other insinuating, suggestive damning with shrug, a raised eyebrow, or a look of caution.

[citation needed] In 1898, Greener was appointed by President William McKinley as General Consul at Bombay, India.

He held a job as an agent for an insurance company, practiced law, and occasionally lectured on his life and times.

His Harvard diploma and other personal papers were rediscovered in an attic in the South Side of Chicago in the early 21st century.

In 1902, the Chinese government decorated him with the Order of the Double Dragon for his service to the Boxer War and assistance to Shansi famine sufferers.

[8] In 2009, some of his personal papers were discovered in the attic of an abandoned home on the south side of Chicago by a member of a demolition crew.