Black History Month

Celebrating Black History Month

WWCDA is proud to celebrate Black History Month, as we honor the many struggles and accomplishments of African Americans.  Black history is inextricably woven into American history, and the struggles for racial equality have advanced justice and equality under the law for all people.

In honoring Black History Month, the WWCDA reaffirms its core values of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access — the very ideals manifested by the many African American women who have been trailblazers in the practice of law. We especially want to recognize the three such trailblazers below. 

A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School, Judge Jackson clerked in the District of Massachusetts and the First Circuit before clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Judge Jackson worked in private practice from 2000 to 2003 and served as an assistant special counsel to the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 2003 to 2005. She then served as an assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C. from 2005-2007, and worked as an appellate litigator at Morrison & Foerster from 2007-2010. Judge Jackson served as Vice Chair and Commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 2010 until December 2014. She was nominated by President Barack Obama and Senate-confirmed as a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia, where she served from 2013-2021. On March 30, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Jackson to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Judge Jackson was confirmed by the United States Senate on April 7, 2022, and sworn into office on June 30. She is the first Black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court. Judge Jackson is also a former member of WWCDA.

United States District Judge Deborah A. Batts is the first openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual member of the federal judiciary. President Clinton appointed Judge Batts to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1994. A distinguished member of the bench, she has presided over several high-profile cases, including a lawsuit against former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who was accused of failing to inform New Yorkers of the health risks of returning to their homes after the 9/11 attacks. In 1973, she became an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. In 1979, she became an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York in the Criminal Division. And in 1984, Judge Batts joined the faculty at Fordham University School of Law as the first black faculty member.

In 2001, an oil portrait of Judge Batts, commissioned by the Harvard Law School Association Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Alumni/ae Committee, was unveiled at and presented to Harvard Law School. She is also a recipient of the William M. Tendy Award from the Robert B. Fiske, Jr. Association.

Jane Bolin was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on April 11, 1908. She was the daughter of Gaius C. Bolin, a lawyer and the first black person to graduate from Williams College. At 16, she enrolled at Wellesley College where she was one of only two black freshmen. Bolin graduated in the top 20 of her class in 1928. Although Bolin was strongly discouraged from applying to Yale Law School due to her race, she was admitted and graduated in 1931 as the first black woman to receive a law degree from Yale. She then went on to become the first black woman to join the New York City Bar Association in 1932. On July 22, 1939, Mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, appointed Bolin as a judge of the Domestic Relations Court, making Bolin the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States. Bolin proceeded to be the only black female judge in the country for twenty years. Bolin remained a judge of the court for 40 years until her retirement at age 70. She worked to encourage racially integrated child services, ensuring that probation officers were assigned without regard to race or religion, and publicly funded childcare agencies accepted children without regard to ethnic background.