Philip Manual Thorne

Philip Manual Thorne, Jr. was born in 1885 in Charleston, South Carolina. He spent some of his early life in New York City and graduated from Boys’ High School in Brooklyn. He entered Yale Law School in 1906. At Yale, he was secretary of the Wayland Club, a debating club at the Law School, and was a founding member of Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. In 1908, he brought a lawsuit against a New Haven restaurant owner who refused to serve Black patrons. The case was settled when the restaurant owner agreed to pay damages and legal fees. Thorne graduated in 1909 and began practicing law with the firm of Thompson and Ballantine in New York City. In 1911, he opened his own law office in New York. In 1916, he was part of a reception committee that hosted Governor Charles Whitman in New York City for a Booker T. Washington Day celebration. Little information has been found about Thorne’s life after the 1910s; in the 1920s, relatives reported to the Yale Alumni Office that they had lost touch with him and did not know where he was located.