Charles A. Otley was mentioned in one source as having been an attorney in 1872 in Marianna (Lee County), Arkansas. An article in the Arkansas Daily Gazette reported that a Black man of this name was elected city attorney in Phillips County in 1872. The 1885 Little Rock (Pulaski County) City Directory lists an “Otney, C.A.,” as a lawyer but it is not clear that these are the same person. No other information is known about him.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299, 303 n8, 325, 338 (2000);