Image: Eunice Hunton Carter

Description: Eunice Carter was the first African American woman to work as a prosecutor in the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney’s Office. Prior to becoming a prosecutor, she was the first black woman to graduate from Fordham Law School in 1932. As a key assistant to special prosecutor, Thomas Dewey, she is credited with establishing key facts in the prosecution of mobster Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. Carter continued to work with Thomas Dewey and the District Attorney’s Office until 1945, when she started her own practice. She was active with the United Nations, National Council of Negro Women and YWCA until her death in 1970. She was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1899, the daughter of William Alphaeus Hunton, Sr. (founder of the black division of the Y.M.C.A.) and Addie Waites Hunton (a social worker, suffragist, civil rights activist, pan-africanist); both were college educated. Her paternal grandfather Stanton Hunton purchased his freedom from slavery before the American Civil War. Her brother, W. Alphaeus Hunton, Jr., was an author, academic and activist noted for his involvement with the Council on African Affairs and promotion of Pan-African identity. The family moved from Atlanta to Brooklyn, after the 1906 Atlanta race riot. They attended local schools. Their mother, Addie Hunton, was active with the NAACP and the YMCA, achieving national status. She was selected as one of two women to go to France during World War I to check on the condition of United States black servicemen. Eunice graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, receiving a Bachelor's and a Master's degree. After a brief time as a social worker, she decided to study law. She became the first black woman to receive a law degree from Fordham University in New York City. In mid-May 1933, she passed the New York bar exam. Eunice married Lisle Carter, Sr., who was one of the first African American dentists in New York. They lived for many years in Harlem. The couple's only child, Lisle Carter, Jr., graduated from college and law school. He practiced law and later worked in the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential administrations as a political appointee. Lisle Carter, Jr. had five children, one of whom is author and Yale Law professor Stephen L. Carter, who published a biography in 2018 about his grandmother Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster. She was used as inspiration for a character on Boardwalk Empire Friendless Child”, Episode 7 of Season 5 of Boardwalk Empire (10/19/2014). nba.com, Brooklyn Nets Presents the Untold: Eunice Carter (Feb. 2019); The Mob Museum
Title: Eunice Hunton Carter
Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/147039490@N04/49704677818/
Author: Bluesy Daye
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication
License: CC0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en
Attribution Required?: No