JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Great Black Women in His­to­ry se­ries

Setting new standards for black women in US legal system

by

20111227

It is the hope of every per­son of African de­scent that the world would one day look at a cre­ation of beau­ti­ful peo­ple with­out see­ing a skin colour. It would al­so be nice to know that a black man oth­er than those in sports, can make mil­lions with­out the per­ceived no­tion...."he is prob­a­bly in­to drugs." And it would be awe­some if one day blacks can feel se­cure that they do be­long in every sphere of so­ci­ety. This week the T&T Guardian is proud to fea­ture Con­stance Bak­er-Mot­ley-first African-Amer­i­can woman to ever ar­gue a case be­fore the US Supreme Court, the first to be elect­ed to the New York Sen­ate, and the first ever to be ap­point­ed as a fed­er­al court judge. Look out next week for the fi­nal woman to be fea­tured in the T&T Guardian's trib­ute to great black women in his­to­ry-our very own Beryl McBurnie, dance ex­tra­or­di­naire and Founder of the Lit­tle Carib The­atre-T&T's first the­atre ded­i­cat­ed to the cul­tur­al arts in T&T.

His­to­ry

Born Sep­tem­ber 14, 1921 in New Haven, Con­necti­cut to a chef who worked for Skull and Bones, an ex­clu­sive so­cial club at Yale Col­lege in New Haven, Con­necti­cut, Con­stance Bak­er found her­self from an ear­ly age with an over­whelm­ing pas­sion for civ­il rights. This pas­sion led her to join the lo­cal chap­ter of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for the Ad­vance­ment of Coloured Peo­ple (NAACP) af­ter she was de­nied ad­mis­sion to a pub­lic beach and skat­ing rink. Un­able to af­ford a col­lege ed­u­ca­tion de­spite her aca­d­e­m­ic tal­ent, she so im­pressed wealthy white con­trac­tor and phil­an­thropist Clarence Blakeslee that he paid for her ed­u­ca­tion. She grad­u­at­ed from New York Uni­ver­si­ty in 1943. Three years lat­er, af­ter earn­ing a law de­gree from Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York City, she mar­ried Joel Wil­son Mot­ley, a re­al es­tate and in­sur­ance bro­ker. Even be­fore com­plet­ing law school, she joined the Le­gal De­fense and Ed­u­ca­tion­al Fund of the NAACP, where she worked with Thur­good Mar­shall.

Over the 20-year pe­ri­od dur­ing which she served as a staff mem­ber and as­so­ciate coun­sel, she won nine civ­il rights vic­to­ries in cas­es she ar­gued be­fore the US Supreme Court, in­clud­ing James H Mered­ith's right to be ad­mit­ted to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­sis­sip­pi in 1962. From 1964 to 1965 Mot­ley served a full term in New York state's Sen­ate, and in 1965 she be­came the first woman to serve as a city bor­ough pres­i­dent. While work­ing in that ca­pac­i­ty, Mot­ley de­vel­oped a plan to re­vi­talise the in­ner city and to im­prove hous­ing and in­ner-city schools. In 1966 Pres­i­dent Lyn­don B John­son nom­i­nat­ed her to the US Dis­trict Court for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York, mak­ing Mot­ley the first black woman to be ap­point­ed to a fed­er­al judge­ship. Al­though op­posed by south­ern con­ser­v­a­tives in the Sen­ate, she was even­tu­al­ly con­firmed and lat­er be­came chief judge (1982) and se­nior judge (1986), serv­ing in the lat­ter post un­til her death on Sep­tem­ber 28, 2005 in New York.

In­for­ma­tion gath­ered from www.bookrags.com


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored