Day 19 Black History Month 2021 - Jane Bolin

Jane Matilda Bolin (April 11, 1908 – January 8, 2007)

For day 19 of Black History Month, we’d like to highlight Judge Jane Matilda Bolin, an American lawyer, judge and educator who was the first African American woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join New York City Bar Association, the first to join the New York City Law Department, and the first to serve as a judge in the United States.

As an African American and as a woman, she was no stranger to discrimination based on her race or her gender. She would sometimes be denied service at local businesses in her hometown and was prevented from enrolling at the local college (Vassar College) as it did not accept African American students at the time. She would enroll instead at Wellesley College where she was one of two African American freshmen in the entire school. Being socially rejected by the rest of the student body, she and the other African American student opted to live off campus together. Her career advisor at Wellesley try to discourage her from applying to Yale Law School due to her race and her gender but she ultimately applied, was accepted and graduated in the top of her class in 1928. She was the only African American, and one of three woman at Yale.

In 1939, she would be appointed a judge over the Domestic Relations Court and for the next 20 years, she would serve as the only African American female judge in the country. Throughout her career, she was an activist for children’s rights and education. She would serve as a legal advisor to the Council of Negro Women and on the boards of the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Child Welfare League.

“Those gains we have made were never graciously and generously granted. We have had to fight every inch of the way… in the face of sometimes insufferable humiliations.” – Jane Bolin