Some of the most famous Black judges in American history include Macon Bolling Allen, who became the country’s first Black judicial officer in 1848; Jonathan Jasper Wright, the first Black state supreme court justice; William Hastie, the first Black federal judge; Jane Bolin, the first Black woman on any American bench; Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman federal judge; Thurgood Marshall, the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice; Clarence Thomas, his successor; and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. Their work stretches from Reconstruction-era state courts through landmark civil rights litigation and into the Supreme Court’s current term.
The Reconstruction-Era Pioneers
Macon Bolling Allen was sworn in as a justice of the peace in Massachusetts in 1848, at a time when most Black Americans had no legal rights at all. He later moved to South Carolina during Reconstruction, where the state legislature elected him as a judge on the Criminal Court in Charleston. He held that seat until the court was abolished in 1874, then briefly served as a probate judge for Charleston County.
Jonathan Jasper Wright reached higher ground. In 1870, the South Carolina legislature elected him to fill a vacancy on the state supreme court, making him the first Black state supreme court justice in the country. His tenure ended under pressure when a new Democratic majority launched impeachment proceedings against him on flimsy accusations, and he resigned before the process concluded. No Black judge held a comparable position for decades after.
George Lewis Ruffin became the first Black graduate of Harvard Law School and in 1883 was appointed to the district court in Charlestown, Massachusetts, making him the first Black judge appointed to the bench in a northern state.1Harvard Law School. HLS Hosts Long Road to Justice Exhibit
William Hastie, the First Black Federal Judge
William Henry Hastie holds a pair of firsts that reshaped the federal judiciary. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the Virgin Islands, making him the first Black person ever appointed to a federal judgeship. After that post and a stint as governor of the Virgin Islands, President Harry Truman appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1949, making him the first Black federal appellate judge in the country.2United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Chief Judge Hastie
Hastie was far more than a symbolic appointment. Alongside Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston, he developed the legal strategy of using federal lawsuits to attack segregation under the “separate but equal” framework of Plessy v. Ferguson. He served as lead counsel with Marshall in Smith v. Allwright, the 1944 Supreme Court case that struck down racially segregated primary elections. Hastie served on the Third Circuit for twenty-two years, including as chief judge from 1968 to 1971, and received the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his contributions to civil rights.
Jane Bolin, the First Black Woman Judge
Jane Bolin became the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School in 1931.3Yale Law School. Historical Profile: Jane Matilda Bolin 31 In 1939, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia called her to the city building at the World’s Fair and surprised her by swearing her in as a judge on the Domestic Relations Court. She was the first Black woman to hold a judicial seat anywhere in the United States.
Bolin used the position to dismantle discriminatory practices from the inside. When she arrived, Black probation officers were assigned only to Black families. She ended that system. She also required publicly funded childcare agencies to accept children regardless of ethnic background, pushing for racially integrated child services across New York City.3Yale Law School. Historical Profile: Jane Matilda Bolin 31
Constance Baker Motley
Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman appointed to a federal judgeship when President Lyndon Johnson nominated her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966.4Federal Judicial Center. Motley, Constance Baker She had already left a deep imprint on civil rights law before taking the bench. Working with Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, she wrote the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education. As a judge, she was known for careful attention to procedure and a firm commitment to protecting the rights of everyone who appeared before her. She served on the Southern District until her death in 2005.
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. received his first judicial appointment from President Johnson in 1964 to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter elevated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where he eventually served as chief judge.5United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Chief Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. Higginbotham became one of the foremost scholars on race and the American legal system, publishing extensively on how the law had been used to subjugate minority communities throughout the nation’s history.
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall spent decades as the nation’s most consequential civil rights lawyer before he ever put on a robe. As chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he argued and won Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. President Kennedy nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961, though the appointment initially came as a recess appointment after the Senate adjourned without acting.6National Archives. The Long Siege: Thurgood Marshalls Other Court Nomination Battle On the Second Circuit, Marshall wrote 112 opinions, and not a single one was overturned on appeal.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson convinced Marshall to leave the appeals court and become Solicitor General of the United States, the government’s top advocate before the Supreme Court.7U.S. Department of Justice. Solicitor General: Thurgood Marshall Two years later, Johnson nominated him as the first Black Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall was confirmed on August 30, 1967, and served until his retirement in 1991.
On the Court, Marshall championed a judicial philosophy rooted in individual liberties and the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. He was a frequent dissenter, particularly in cases where he believed the majority was retreating from constitutional guarantees of equal protection. His dissents in death penalty cases and affirmative action disputes remain some of the most cited and studied opinions in American law.
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas succeeded Marshall on the Supreme Court, though the two could hardly be more different in judicial philosophy. President George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas on July 8, 1991, to fill the seat Marshall vacated.8Federal Judicial Center. Thomas, Clarence Before reaching the Court, Thomas served as the longest-tenured Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, holding the position from 1982 to 1990.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Clarence Thomas He then served briefly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit before his Supreme Court nomination.
At the EEOC, Thomas was no figurehead. In his first case as chairman, he sued an automaker for workplace discrimination and secured a $42.5 million settlement, one of the largest in the agency’s history at the time.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Clarence Thomas On the Supreme Court, Thomas has built a long record grounded in originalism, interpreting the Constitution based on its original public meaning.
Ketanji Brown Jackson
Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court when she took the oaths of office on June 30, 2022.10Supreme Court of the United States. Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Investiture Ceremony Nominated by President Joe Biden, she is the first justice ever to have served as a federal public defender, giving her direct experience representing people who could not afford their own attorneys in criminal cases.
Before reaching the high court, Jackson served as a vice chair and commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she worked on federal sentencing guidelines and policy.11U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson She then spent seven years as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before being elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2021. That combination of criminal defense, sentencing policy, trial court, and appellate experience represents a breadth of perspective the Supreme Court had not previously seen.
Why the Gaps Between Firsts Were So Long
Article III federal judges serve for life, which means every appointment carries generational weight. A judge appointed at 45 might serve for three or four decades. When those appointments went almost exclusively to white men for most of American history, the effects compounded. Nearly a century separates Jonathan Jasper Wright’s 1870 seat on the South Carolina Supreme Court from Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, and more than fifty years separate Marshall’s confirmation from Ketanji Brown Jackson’s. The list of famous Black judges in American history is, in part, a map of how slowly that door opened.