Jane Bolin
by
John C Abercrombie
Today is day 5 of 31 and the fucus of this post is
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Jane Bolin is best known for being the first Black Female Judge in America. In fact, she was the only Black female judge in America for 20 years.
Her father Gaius C Bolin was a lawyer and the first Black person to graduate from Williams College. Her mother Matilda Ingram Emery was a British immigrant from the British Isles. Jane was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on April 11, 1908. Jane Bolin’s mother died when Jane was eight years old. Her father continued to practice law in Duchess County for fifty years and was the first Black president of the County Bar Association.
Jane faced discrimination as the child of an interracial couple in Poughkeepsie, being denied service in businesses. This was normal all across America. She was influenced by the stark picture and articles of extrajudicial hanging of Blacks in “The Crisis,” the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Hangings of Black people was an intimidation of people who were viewed as not being subservient enough to the White people. These were frequently attended by entire White families with the slaughtered person being set afire, mutilated, or just shot with 100s of bullets. These bodies were often displayed for extended periods to “teach” Black people how society viewed them. These were horrible examples of man’s inhumanity to man. These event often were allowed to proceed by law enforcement. The people who led and participated in these unlawful acts were never convicted or charged.
After High School Bolin was prevented from enrollment in Vassar College on the basis of her skin color and she enrolled in Wellesley in Massachusetts. She was sixteen at the time of her enrollment. There were only two Black freshmen in the entire freshmen class. She was socially rejected by the White students she and the other Black student moved off campus and lived together.
Jane Bolin graduated in 1928 in the top twenty of her class. Knowing the difficulties faced by Blacks in America, her career adviser at Wellesley discouraged her from even applying to Yale Law school because of her gender and race. Despite this ill-advised move, Bolin applied and was accepted and in 1931 became the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School. She passed the New York state bar examination in 1932.
What we see here is an often-repeated scenario where women or minorities are steered away from certain jobs, not on the basis of ability, but the generally held stereotype of society. This is something that people of promise are not steered in the wrong direction based on stereotypes. We continue to see this throughout history, and it is difficult to think of the many advantages that could have been used by society as a whole if people were judged as individuals not as stereotypes.
Bolin practiced in Poughkeepsie with her father before accepting employment with the new Your City Corporation Counsel’s office. Her next move was to practice law with husband Ralph E Mizelle. He became a member of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet. Unfortunately, he passed in 1943. She had one son at this time and later married Walter P Offutt, Jr a minister who unfortunately would die in 1974.
At the age of thirty-one, Bolin was appointed a judge of the Domestic Relations Court, now known as Family Court by New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia where she remained for forty years. At the age of thirty-one she became the only Black female judge in America. She remained there for forty years the mandatory age of retirement. Her work included encouraging racially integrated child services, ensuring probation officers were signed without regard to race or religion and that publicly funded childcare agencies accept children without regard to ethnic background.
Bolin was an activist for children’s rights and education. She was a legal advisor to the National Council of Negro Women. She served on the boards of the NAACP, the National Urban League, the City-Wide Citizens’ Committee on Harlem, and the Child Welfare League. Though she resigned from the NAACP due to its response to McCarthyism, she remained active in the Civil Rights Movement. Bolin also sought to combat racial discrimination from religious groups by helping to open a special school for black boys in New York City. She received honorary degrees from Tuskegee Institute, Williams College, Hampton University, Western College for Women and Morgan State University.
A dedicated worker, she remained active after retiring in 1979, volunteering as a reading instructor in the New York for two years and serving on the New York State Board of Regents. After a life of groundbreaking ng achievements, Jane Bolin passed at the aAge of ninety-eight in Long Island City, Queens, New York.
Jane Bolin and her father have been honored with a mural at the Dutchess County Court House and the Poughkeepsie City School District’s administration is named in her honor. The Queens-Midtown Tunnel is also named in her honor. She is interred at Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery.
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For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. These posts focus on the reality of Black life in America after the Civil War culminating in the landmark Brown v Board of Education that changed so many of the earlier practices. To see the posts, click here
For Black History Month 2021, we focused on Black Medical Achievements, Inventors and Scientists.To see those posts, click here.
For Black History Month 2022 we featured “Health and Wellness” To see the entire series click this link.
For Women’s History Month 2022 we featured 31 amazing women we should all know. To see the series, click this link.
We also posted a 5 part mini-series on the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific massacres in the history of America. Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. To see the posts, click here.
We also did a mini-series on the Schomburg Center for Research a most amazing collection of Black history and culture. To see this mini-series.
The Schomburg Center
A world class collection of Black History inspired by a 5th grade teacher who told Arturo Schomburg that there was NO African history. Nothing of value. Schomburg dedicated his life to proving that teacher wrong and Schomburg did an amazing job with his collection.
Schomburg – The man who built a library
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Jane Bolin – First Black Female Judge
Jane Bolin: 1st Black woman judge in America | Black History Facts
A profile of Jane Bolin, the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School and the first Black woman judge in America.
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Daughter of the Empire State: The Life of Judge Jane Bolin
This long overdue biography of the nation’s first African American woman judge elevates Jane Matilda Bolin to her rightful place in American history as an activist, integrationist, jurist, and outspoken public figure in the political and professional milieu of New York City before the onset of the modern Civil Rights movement.
Bolin was appointed to New York City’s domestic relations court in 1939 for the first of four ten-year terms. When she retired in 1978, her career had extended well beyond the courtroom. Drawing on archival materials as well as a meeting with Bolin in 2002, historian Jacqueline A. McLeod reveals how Bolin parlayed her judicial position to impact significant reforms of the legal and social service system in New York
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Jane Bolin (1st African American Female Judge) Black History Month -History Makers- The Wise Channel
The Wise Channel celebrates history makers who did amazing things during Black History Month and all year long! Jane Bolin made history as the first African American female judge. Watch the video to learn more about her story.
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Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers
Black women lawyers are not new to the practice of law or to leadership in the fight for justice and quality. Black women formally entered the practice of American law in 1872, the year that Charlotte E. Ray became the first black woman to graduate from an American law school. Rebels in Lawintroduces some of these women and through their own writing tells a compelling story about the little-known involvement of black women in law and politics. Beginning with a short essay written in 1897, the writing collected by J. Clay Smith, Jr., tells us how black women came to the practice of law, the challenges they faced as women and as blacks in making a place for themselves in the legal profession, their fight to become legal educators, and their efforts to encourage other black women and black men to come to the practice of law.
The essays demonstrate the involvement of black women lawyers in important public issues of our time and show them addressing the sensitive subjects of race, equality, justice and freedom. Drawing together many writings that have never been published or have been published in obscure journals or newspapers, Rebels in Law is a groundbreaking study. In addition, it offers historical background information on each writer and on the history of black women lawyers. Providing an opportunity to study the origins of black women as professionals, community leaders, wives, mothers, and feminists, it will be of interest to scholars in the fields of law, history, political science, sociology, black studies and women’s studies.
J. Clay Smith, Jr., is Professor of Law, Howard University Law School. He was formerly a member of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Dean of Howard University Law School, and President of the Washington Bar Association. He is the author of Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944 and numerous articles.
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Jane Bolin Biography – An unsung hero, Heart moving story of an African American Woman
Jane Bolin Biography – Heart moving story of an African American Woman
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Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality
“A must-read for anyone who dares to believe that equal justice under the law is possible and is in search of a model for how to make it a reality.”—Anita Hill
Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first Black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only Black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP’s Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs. The Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South. She was the first Black woman elected to the state Senate in New York, the first woman elected Manhattan Borough President, and the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary.
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AAHIAH episode #53 “THE JUDGE JANE BOLIN STORY”
A true trailblazer. Jane Bolin was not only the first African American to graduate from Yale Law School, but also the first Black female to pass the New York State Bar. But wait, there’s more…Jane Bolin was also the first Black female judge in the United States, with an unblemished 40 years on the bench.
This video can be watched, just click it which takes you to YouTube where it can be watched.
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it”. As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is “undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.”
Now, 10 years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a 10th-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.
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Women’s History in the Hudson Valley: Jane Bolin
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Jane Bolin is just one example of a person who refused to be deterred from her dream. She was a role model for Constance Baker Motley an outstanding Civil Rights lawyer who inspired Ketanji Brown Jackson, America’s only Black female Supreme Court Justice. Judge bolin should be an example of both men and women of all races and religions that we are capable of so much more. Don’t be diverted by people who don’t know what you are capable of doing!