List of African American jurists facts for kids

This article is about amazing African Americans who have made a big difference in the world of law in the United States. These are people who became important judges, lawyers, or legal experts. We're focusing on those whose main reason for being famous is their work in law.

Trailblazing Lawyers and Legal Experts

Many African Americans have worked hard to change laws and fight for fairness. Here are some who made a huge impact:

• Violette Neatley Anderson (1882–1937): She was the first African-American woman to argue a case in front of the highest court in the country, the United States Supreme Court, in 1926. This was a huge step forward!
• Dennis Archer (born 1942): He was the first African American to lead the American Bar Association, which is a big group for lawyers. He also used to be the mayor of Detroit.
• Derrick Bell (1930–2011): A very important law professor at Harvard University, he helped create a way of thinking about law called critical race theory. This idea looks at how race and racism affect legal systems.
• Stephen L. Carter (born 1954): He is a well-known law professor at Yale Law School.
• Johnnie Cochran (1937–2005): He was a very famous defense lawyer who represented many important people.
• Marian Wright Edelman (born 1939): She started the Children's Defense Fund, an organization that works to protect children's rights.
• Lani Guinier (1950–2022): She was a scholar who studied voting rights and was the first African American woman to become a tenured professor at Harvard Law School.
• William Henry Harrison Hart (1857–1934): This attorney bravely fought against the unfair Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation.
• Barbara Jordan (1936–1996): She was the first African American woman from a southern state to be elected to the U.S. Congress. She was very important during the investigation of President Richard Nixon.
• Wade H. McCree (1920–1987): He was the second African American to serve as the United States Solicitor General, a top lawyer who represents the U.S. government in Supreme Court cases. The first was Thurgood Marshall.
• Barack Obama (born 1961): Before becoming the 44th President of the United States of America, he was a law professor at the University of Chicago and a United States Senator. He was also the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.
• Ida Platt (1862–1939): She was the first African-American woman to get a license to practice law in Illinois, and only the third in the entire United States.
• Charlotte E. Ray (1850–1911): She holds the amazing title of being the first Black American female lawyer in the United States.
• Patricia J. Williams (born 1951): Like Derrick Bell, she is a strong supporter of critical race theory and teaches law at Columbia University.
• William F. Yardley (1844–1924): He was a strong voice against segregation and the first African American to run for governor of Tennessee in 1876.

Important Judges

Many African Americans have also served as judges, making sure laws are applied fairly. Here are some notable examples:

• Macon Bolling Allen (born 1815): He was one of the very first African American judges in the U.S., appointed as a Justice of the Peace in Massachusetts in 1848.
• Jane Bolin (1908–2007): She was the first African American woman to become a judge in the United States, serving in the New York City Domestic Relations Court from 1939 to 1978.
• William H. Hastie (1904–1976): He was the first African American to serve as a federal judge, appointed to the U.S. District Court of the Virgin Islands in 1937, and later to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
• Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993): A true giant in American law, he was the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, from 1967 to 1991. Before that, he was a key lawyer in the civil rights movement.
• Constance Baker Motley (1921–2005): She was the first African American woman to become a federal judge, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966.
• Robert N. C. Nix Jr. (1928–2003): He was the first African American Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, serving from 1984 to 1996.
• Alan Page (born 1945): A former NFL football star, he became the first African American Justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1993.
• James Benton Parsons (1911–1993): He was the first African American to be appointed as a federal judge in the continental United States, serving on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois from 1961.
• Matthew J. Perry (1921–2011): A leading civil rights attorney, he later became the first African American federal judge in South Carolina.
• George Lewis Ruffin (1834–1886): He was the first African American judge in the United States, appointed to the Municipal Court of Charlestown District in Massachusetts in 1883.
• Jonathan Jasper Wright (1840–1885): He was the first African American to serve on a state supreme court, joining the South Carolina Supreme Court in 1870.
• Ketanji Brown Jackson (born 1970): She made history in 2022 by becoming the first African American woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Images for kids

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  Johnnie Cochran

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  Christopher Darden

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  Eric Holder

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  Loretta Lynch

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  Deval Patrick

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  Clarence Thomas

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  Mel Watt

See also

• List of African American federal judges
• List of Asian American jurists
• List of Hispanic and Latino American jurists
• List of Jewish American jurists
• List of LGBT jurists in the United States
• List of Native American jurists
• List of first women lawyers and judges in the United States
• List of first minority male lawyers and judges in the United States