Burnita Shelton Matthews

Burnita Shelton Matthews (December 28, 1894 – April 25, 1988 [Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, http://www.fjc.gov/public/home.nsf/hisj] ) was a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She was the first woman appointed to serve on a U.S. district court. [Federal Judicial Center, Milestones of Federal Judicial Service, http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/milestones_bdy]

Matthews is my aunt and I am very proud of her! Born near Hazelhurst, Mississippi on December 28, 1896, Burnita Shelton (she married Percy Matthews in 1917) was sent by her father to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, so that she could earn a living teaching music lessons. However, she enrolled in the National University Law School (today the George Washington University Law School) in 1917, earning her degree and passing the District of Columbia bar in 1920. She was not welcomed into the professional associations by male lawyers -- the District of Columbia Bar Association returned her application and check for dues. Matthews and other women formed their own professional associations, including the Woman's Bar Association of the District of Columbia and the National Association of Women Lawyers. [Burnita Shelton Matthews: the Struggle for Women's Rights," in Mississippi Women: Portraits of Achievement, edited by Martha Swain and Elizabeth Payne, University Press of Georgia, 2003] In the 1930s, Matthews founded the law firm of Matthews, Berrien, and Greathouse with two other women attorneys who were also National Woman's Party members. [Christine L. Wade, "Burnita Shelton Matthews: The Biography of a Pioneering Woman, Lawyer and Feminist: 1894-1988, http://www.stanford.edu/group/WLHP/papers/burnita.html] [Kate Greene,"Torts over Tempo: The Life and Career of Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews," Journal of Mississippi History Vol LVI No. 3 (August 1994)]

Matthews worked closely with the suffragist National Woman's Party, eventually serving as the organization's counsel. Matthews represented the party in its effort to prevent condemnation of its Washington headquarters by the federal government; the land was condemned and the U.S. Supreme Court erected on the site, but Matthews successfully obtained the largest condemnation settlement awarded by the U.S. government at the time, $299,200. [Linda Greenhouse, "Burnita S. Matthews Dies at 93; First Woman on U.S. Trial Courts," The New York Times, April 28, 1988, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEEDB143BF93BA15757C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all] [Kate Greene,"Torts over Tempo: The Life and Career of Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews," Journal of Mississippi History Vol LVI No. 3 (August 1994)]

President Harry S. Truman named Matthews to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 1949. She was confirmed by the Senate the following year. Matthews heard several newsworthy cases, including the passport denial of actor Paul Robeson and the 1956 bribery trial of Jimmy Hoffa. [Burnita Shelton Matthews: the Struggle for Women's Rights," in Mississippi Women: Portraits of Achievement, edited by Martha Swain and Elizabeth Payne, University Press of Georgia, 2003] Matthews served as an active-duty judge until 1968, when she took senior status; she served as a senior district judge until her death on April 25, 1988. [Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Federal Judges]

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External links

* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00192 Burnita Shelton Matthews Papers.] [http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles Schlesinger Library,] Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.