BHM: Constance Baker Motley

Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005, Civil Rights Activist, Lawyer, Judge, State Senator and President of Manhattan, New York City)


Constance Baker Motley was born in New Haven, Connecticut on September 14, 1921. Her parents emigrated from a the caribbean island, Nevis and she was the ninth of twelve children. Her mother was the founder of the local NAACP Chapter in New Haven Connecticut, Motley later joined it after she was denied entrance into a local skating rink as well as a public beach. She was able to attend college with some financial assistance of local philanthropist, Clarence Blakeslee. She attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennesseee first before deciding to return up north to attend New York University where she eventually received her bachelor's degree in economics. in 1943. She then obtained her law degree from Columbia Law School in 1946.  She met and married Joel Wilson Motely who was a real estate and insurance broker in 1949.

She began her legal career as a law clerk in the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. While at Columbia she became acquainted with Thurgood Marshall, helping file Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. She was the LDF’s first female attorney and became Associate Counsel to the LDF, making her the NAACP’s lead trial attorney. Baker became the first black woman to ever argue a case before the Supreme Court in Meredith v. Fair, which helped James Meredith become the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962.

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Two years later, Motley was elected to the New York Senate, the first black woman to hold that office. The following year she was named Manhattan borough president — the first woman and black person in that position. In 1966, she was appointed a federal judgeship by Lyndon Johnson, becoming the first black female federal court judge. She was appointed senior judge, in 1986, for the Southern District of New York—the largest federal trial court in the United States.

Motley wrote countless articles and legal observations which reflected her stance on civil rights and its importance in America, including: Equal Justice Under Law: The Life of a Pioneer for Black Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. In the article, Motley presents a detailed legal history of her fight against the “separate but equal” racial practices of the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1993, Motley was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizen Medal in 2001, and the NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal, the organization’s highest honor, in 2003. On September 28, 2005, one week after her eighty-forth birthday, Motley died of congestive heart failure in New York.




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