5 great black lawyers whose pioneering works changed America over time

Constance Baker

Born in 1921, the civil rights advocate was the first black woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship in 1966. Even before completing law school, she joined the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the NAACP, where she worked with Thurgood Marshall. For the 20-year period that she served as a staff member and associate counsel, she won nine civil rights victories in cases she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, including James H. Meredith’s right to be admitted to the University of Mississippi in 1962. Representing civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr,. Baker, from 1964 to 1965, 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. In that role, she developed a plan to revitalize the inner city and to improve housing and inner-city schools. In 1966 she became the first black woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship and eventually became a chief judge (1982) and senior judge in 1986, a post she held until her death in 2005.