The First Black Woman To Practice Law in the United States

 

By Kristy McCaffrey

Charlotte E. Ray graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1872, and she became the first black American female lawyer in the United States. She was also the first female admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, and she was the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.

Charlotte was born in 1850 in New York City to a pastor father who was an important figure in the abolitionist movement and a mother who was an anti-slavery activist. She had six siblings, and their father put great emphasis on education. Charlotte graduated from the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in 1869. It was one of the few places that would educate a black woman.

Charlotte E. Ray

Charlotte then became a teacher at Howard University where she was able to secure a spot in the Law Department by applying as C.E. Ray. She completed her law degree three years later. In 1875, Charlotte secured a rare victory on behalf of an uneducated black woman seeking to divorce her abusive husband.

Despite Charlotte’s tenacity and fortitude, and that she was considered to be “one of the best lawyers on corporations in the country,” her legal career was short. She opened a law office in Washington DC, but she was unable to gain enough clients to sustain the business. She later became a public school teacher in Brooklyn.

She was active in the women’s suffrage movement and fought for equality for black women until her death at age 60 in 1911.

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