Charlotte E. Ray, the First Black Woman Attorney in the US
—Christina
Listen here: www.spreaker.com/user/bqn1/hwts244
Shoutout to Dillon White (@dillonmichaelwhite on Instagram), from whom I first heard about Ms. Ray and whose account everyone should follow.
The first African American woman to practice law in the United States was Charlotte E. Ray. She was born in 1850 in New York City. Her parents, Charlotte Augusta Burroughs and the Reverend Charles Bennett Ray, were prominent abolitionists and published the paper The Colored American. Her mother was also a vocal suffragist. The couple made a point of providing a complete education for all seven of their children, sons and daughters, including college. Charlotte earned a teaching degree in 1869 from the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth, then moved to teaching at the prep school attached to Howard University.
Charlotte applied to the Howard University law school soon after she began teaching. Because she knew that they had not yet accepted a woman into the institution and were unlikely to do so, she applied as “C. E. Ray.” They did not know they had accepted a woman until she began attending classes. Once admitted, however, she was there to stay, and her presence and success there served as precedent for other women who sought admission to law schools and other university level programs across the United States.
Upon graduation and passing the bar in early 1872, Ray set up her practice in Washington, D.C. She advertised in Black newspapers as a specialist in commercial law, but the case that brought her notoriety (beyond being the first Black woman lawyer in the US) was a divorce case. On 3 June 1875, she filed with the DC District Court (then known as the DC Supreme Court) on behalf of Martha Gadley, against her husband Daniel. Martha had repeatedly tried to obtain a divorce on the basis of her husband’s cruelty and lack of material support. In this era, these were two of the very few reasons a woman could seek a divorce, but in a system that did not yet recognize women as fully legal persons, to prove that any violence was beyond the context of a man “correcting” his wife was difficult at best. Despite having been refused by lower courts, Martha had a fairly strong case, including hospital records showing the extent of her injuries at her husband’s hands. She also had, in the form of Charlotte Ray, an eloquent advocate who did not hesitate to describe the terrible actions of Daniel Gadley. He was a habitual drunk, often leaving the couple without money for necessities. On one occasion when Martha complained about this lack, he shoved out the front door and locked out her of their home. Ray also described another incident (one imagines, and hopes, this was the last straw before the divorce, though the records do not say) in which Daniel tried to cause Martha to fall through the floorboards of their second-story bedroom “to break her neck.” To do this, he destroyed their bed frame, made her lay down amidst the debris, and then hacked away at the floorboards around her, thankfully unsuccessfully. The case left no doubt in the judges’ minds that Martha Gadley’s very life was at risk, and she was granted the divorce. We do not know what happened to her after this, but one hopes she never had to deal with her ex-husband again.
Despite having won this landmark case, Ray kept her focus on business law, but could not maintain enough work to keep her practice going. We know she married some time in the 1880s, though virtually nothing is known about her husband other than his surname of Frain, which Charlotte took. In the late 1890s, she returned to New York and teaching in the Brooklyn school system. Following in the family tradition, she was an activist for civil and women’s rights issues. She was a member of the National Association for Colored Women and the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and advocated for women’s right to education, careers and the vote.
Ray died of bronchitis at the age of 60 in 1911.