William Francis Yardley

Born free in 1844 to a Black father and an Irish mother, Yardley was left on the doorstep of a white family, who raised him. He studied law under Judge George Andrews and, by the best account, passed the bar in 1872. In 1878 he founded the Knoxville Examiner, the city's first Black paper. His 1876 run for governor, as an independent, attacked segregation and drew under one percent. In 1885 he is believed to have been the first Black lawyer to argue before the Tennessee Supreme Court, against making jail inmates work off court costs. He lost.

What the plaque says

William Francis Yardley Born in Knox County in 1844, he taught school and began the study of law in the late 1860s. In 1873, he was the first African American in Knoxville to be admitted to the State Bar; he served as Justice of the Peace, Alderman, and Second Assistant Fire Chief. In 1876, he ran for Governor. His home was located in the historically black Fifth Ward.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 0.5 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 0.8 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The 1935 school in Clinton that sent twelve Black students down Foley Hill to desegregate Clinton High School in August 1956, now a museum with bronze statues of the Clinton 12.
• Museum of Appalachia — 17 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• Confederate Cemetery — 0.4 mi
• Beauford and Joseph Delaney — 0.4 mi
• Odd Fellows Cemetery — 0.6 mi
• White's Mill — 0.7 mi