In 1882 he was elected by the Trustees, Dean and Professor of Common Law in the University Law School of Allen University, Columbia, S. C., an incorporated institution of learning, under the auspices of the A. M. E. Church. In 1883, he presented a class of four colored youths to the Supreme Court of that State for examination for admission to practise law, the result of his sole instruction--the institution being too poor to hire a corps of law instructors. These colored youths, the first in the history of the State, were examined in open court, and having passed a most creditable examination, as told by the court in open session, were admitted to practice, and became members of the learned profession, and the peers under the law of those who, but less than a quarter of a century before, held them or their parents in slavery. In 1884, another class was presented by Mr. Straker, examined and admitted by the court. Mr. Straker, having now severed his connection with the law school, resumed the practice of his profession at Columbia, S. C. He won great distinction in the management as attorney for the defendant in the celebrated murder case of the State vs. Coleman, reported in 12th S. C., the defence being insanity, in which Mr. Straker was declared to have shown deep research in the law of the plea of _transitoria mania_.
The prejudice of the community keeping distinct all business between black and white of a professional character, Mr. Straker was unable to support himself and family by his profession in the South, and after giving the same a fair test, and spending fourteen years of his life in the endeavor to uplift his race in the South, was compelled to seek a new field. He came to Detroit, Mich., in 1887, bringing with him, from his white fellow-citizens, the highest testimonials of ability and character, who, while they disliked him politically, admired and recognized his legal ability. This, with his own natural energy and legal acumen, soon gave him distinction in his new home. He soon found himself in a fairly lucrative practice, and had for his clients a large number of whites, his own race being too poor to afford such. He distinguished himself as an advocate of ability, as was seen in his victory of the Civil Rights case of Ferguson vs. Gies, 82d Michigan, which decision settled the status of the colored citizen within Michigan, as to his right to accommodation in public places, equally with his white fellow-citizen. His legal argument in this case fully showed him a capable and learned attorney-at-law.