Charlotte E. Ray
Charlotte E. Ray (January 13, 1850 – January 4, 1911) was the first African American female lawyer in the United States.[1] Ray was born in New York City to Charlotte Augusta Burroughs and Reverend Charles Bennett Ray, a prominent abolitionist. During her childhood she attended the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington, D.C. which was one of the few schools African American women could attend. In 1869 she was both a teacher and a student at Howard University. While teaching at Howard, she registered in the Law Department; aware of the school's questionable policy on admitting women, she applied under the name of "C.E. Ray" and was admitted. In the law school she specialized in commercial law, and graduated in February 1872 and was the first woman to graduate from the Howard University School of Law.
Ray was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar on April 23, 1872.[2] Soon after her admission to the bar, she was forced to give up her practice due to poor business, and by 1879 had returned to New York where she worked as a teacher in Brooklyn public schools. Ray attended the National Woman Suffrage Association's New York convention in 1876.[3] She married in the late 1880s and became Charlotte E. Fraim. After 1895 Ray seems to have been active in the National Association of Colored Women.
In 1897 she moved to Woodside, Long Island, where she died of acute bronchitis at the age of 60 in 1911.
Poet H. Cordelia Ray was her sister.
In March 2006, The Northeastern University School of Law (Boston, MA) chapter of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity International chose to honor Ray by naming their newly-chartered chapter after her, in recognition of her place as the first female African American attorney.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Wallenfeldt, Jeff (ed.) (2010). Black American Biographies: The Journey of Achievement. New York: Britannica Educational Pub.. p. 114. ISBN 1615301763. http://books.google.com/books?id=w1MzI8F6X40C&lpg=PA114&dq=Charlotte%20E.%20Ray&pg=PA114#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Hanaford, Phebe Ann (1876). Women of the century. B.B. Russell. p. 568. http://books.google.com/books?id=LYgOAAAAYAAJ&dq=Charlotte%20E.%20Ray&pg=PA568#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ "Letters to the editor: The Black Portia". Crisis - Vol. 82, No. 9. Nov 1975. http://books.google.com/books?id=XE3f0E37wsMC&lpg=PA332&dq=Charlotte%20E.%20Ray&pg=PA369#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ "Student Organizations: Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity International". Northeastern University School of Law. http://www.northeastern.edu/law/campuslife/studentorganizations.html. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
[edit] Further reading
- J. Clay Smith, ed., Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1998
- "Charlotte E. Ray", Black Women in America: Profiles, (1999)
- Virginia G. Drachman. Sisters in Law: Women Lawyers in Modern American History, Harvard University Press, 1998
- Tonya Michelle Osborne, Charlotte E. Ray: A Black Woman Lawyer, 2001
