Charlotte E. Ray

For the American beauty queen, see Charlotte Ray.

Charlotte E. Ray (January 13, 1850 – January 4, 1911) was the first black woman lawyer. Ray was born in New York City where her father the Reverend Charles Bennett Ray was 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. 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. 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 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.^[1] All chapters in PAD are named after lawyers and/or judges.^[2]

References

• 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, hi1998

1. ^ http://www.northeastern.edu/law/campuslife/studentorganizations.html
2. ^ http://www.padcommunity.org/page.php?page_id=9209

Persondata
Name	Ray, Charlotte E.
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Date of birth	January 13, 1850
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Date of death	January 4, 1911
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