Posted on April 23, 2019
On this date in 1872, Charlotte E. Ray became the first black woman in the United States to be the admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Earlier that year, when she graduated from Howard University School of Law and was admitted to the D.C. bar, she became the first black woman to become a U.S. lawyer, period!
Ray opened a law office and advertised in a newspaper run by Frederick Douglass.
There are accounts of Ray as an attorney: clear, authoritative, eloquent. She apparently had a great grasp of corporate law, and she once passionately argued on the behalf of an abused wife.
However, Ray had two huge flaws: she wasn't white, and she wasn't a man.
!
OF COURSE being black and female are NOT flaws! Of course those things shouldn't have mattered to people who needed a lawyer who knew the laws of the land and built good arguments...
...But it did matter, apparently. Because Ray faced a lot of prejudice from people who wouldn't trust a woman with their cases, wouldn't trust a black lawyer with their cases, and certainly wouldn't trust a black female lawyer!
Sigh.
Even though Charlotte Ray was an excellent lawyer, she couldn't make a living at it, and so she ended up moving to New York and becoming a teacher.
She also worked towards women's suffrage and Civil Rights for black people.
She also worked towards women's suffrage and Civil Rights for black people.
Nowadays, in the U.S., about one-third of all lawyers are women. And there are enough black female lawyers to have Black Women Lawyers' Associations...
...and to be snapping up judgeships in record numbers.
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