Ruth Whitehead Whaley

Ruth Whitehead Whaley

Ruth Whitehead Whaley was in 1925 the first African American woman to be admitted to practice law in New York. She was also the first African American woman to enroll at Fordham University School of Law, where she graduated in 1924. [http://law.fordham.edu/centennial/images/cent-1905.pdf] Her husband encouraged her to study law despite the difficulties of racism. In 1933, Whaley became the first African American woman admitted to practice in North Carolina, her home state. She maintained a private law practice in New York City until 1944, when she was appointed to be Secretary of the New York City Board of Estimate.

In 1949, Whaley penned an essay entitled "Women Lawyers Must Balk Both Color and Sex Bias," in which she described the "penalty" of women, and especially minority women, lawyers who must outperform their male colleagues lest "the overlooked errors of a male colleague become the colossal blunders of the woman." Since the legal profession had been for centuries a "male precinct," it was easy to single out the mistakes of a woman lawyer. [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0472086464&id=Qk05m1uiTDIC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=ruth+whitehead+whaley&sig=83X25l3GhdKWRnvATRvqNwChXIE]

On June 8, 2000, the Family Academy, then a charter school in Manhattan that is now P.S. 241, named their auditorium after Whaley. [http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=63617613] , [http://cache.zoominfo.com/cachedpage/?archive_id=6371501&page_id=102590479&page_url=%2f%2fwww.thefamilyacademy.org%2fnew%2fnew.html&page_last_updated=3%2f28%2f2001+3%3a19%3a31+PM&firstName=Ruth&lastName=Whaley] , [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE3DF1130F93BA15755C0A9669C8B63&sec=&pagewanted=print] , [http://schools.nyc.gov/OurSchools/Region10/M241/default.htm] The Black Law Students Association at Fordham Law also named their annual Ruth Whitehead Whaley Award and award dinner in her honor.

References

* J. Clay Smith, ed., " [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0472086464 Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers] , 2000.
* J. Clay Smith, " [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0812216857 Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944] , 1999.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • List of Fordham University people — This is a list of notable alumni of Fordham University, a United States university in New York. Contents 1 Arts and letters 2 Business 3 Education 4 Entertainment …   Wikipedia

  • Fordham University School of Law — Infobox University name = Fordham University School of Law established = 1905 free label = Dean free = William Treanor type = Private city = New York state = New York country = USA postgrad = 1,500 website = [http://law.fordham.edu… …   Wikipedia

  • Bibliography —    As the scope of the dictionary entries and extent of this bibliography make clear, there is a huge range of literature on shamans, from introductory works, general discussions on such topics as definition, and culture specific ethnographic… …   Historical dictionary of shamanism

  • List of Minder episodes — This episode list gives brief descriptions and some other details of the episodes of the ITV television series Minder. Series 1 – 7 focus on Arthur Daley, a middle aged car salesman and self described entrepreneur. He is assisted/minded by Terry… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”