Constance Baker Motley

Constance Baker Motley was the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary, the first Black woman elected to the New York State Senate, and the first woman to serve as Manhattan Borough President. Before all of that, she was the legal architect of the civil rights movement — writing the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education and arguing more cases before the Supreme Court than any other woman at the time, winning nine of ten.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on September 14, 1921, to parents who had emigrated from the Caribbean island of Nevis, Motley was inspired to study law after hearing George Crawford, a Black lawyer, speak at a community event. She attended Fisk University and Columbia Law School, where she was the only Black woman in her class, and joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund under Thurgood Marshall.

Motley's legal work was staggering in scope: she represented Martin Luther King Jr. after his arrest in Albany, Georgia; James Meredith in his fight to integrate the University of Mississippi; and the students who integrated the University of Georgia, the University of Alabama, and Clemson University. She personally desegregated more schools and public institutions than perhaps any other lawyer in American history. President Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the federal bench in 1966, where she served for nearly 40 years. She joined the ancestors on September 28, 2005.