Mary Ann Shad Cary (1829 - 1892)

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Cary was the first black woman to practice law in the United States and the first in North America to edit a newspaper. During the 1850s, she taught in Canada and while there edited the abolitionist newspaper The Provincial Freeman. But with the outbreak of the Civil War, she returned to the United States, becoming active in the recruitment of blacks into the militia. After the war, she attended Howard University, earning a degree in law.