Attorney Charlotte E. Ray
First African-American Woman Lawyer in United States
Born January 13, 1850 in New York City, Ray’s, Reverend Charles Bennett Ray was an abolitionist and one of the owners and editor of the Colored American, a newspaper which targeted the free slave community. Charles Ray was a pastor at the Bethesda Congregational Church.
Ray herself attended the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington, D.C. as it was the only school allowing African-American girls to attend.
Attending Howard University
In 1869 she became both a teacher and a student at Howard University. Howard University was established to provide education for freed slaves and their descendants. However, even Howard University continued the practice of not allowing women to enroll in their law program.
But Charlotte E. Ray found a way around her gender. She used her initials and applied at Howard University as “C. E. Ray.” She graduated from the Howard Law School with a law degree in 1872, becoming the second woman to receive a law degree (Arabella Mansfield was the first), the first African-American woman to receive a law degree and the first woman to be admitted to the District of Columbia Bar Association.
Racial, Gender Prejudices Close Practice
Upon receiving her degree, Ray opened her own law practice in the District of Columbia area. Her focus at Howard had been commercial law and her practice specialized in that area. Due to racial and gender discrimination and prejudices, she was unable to maintain her practice and returned to teaching in Brooklyn.
Myra Bradwell owned The Chicago Legal News. She was also a woman lawyer who had passed the Illinois bar exam but was denied call by the Illinois court. Bradwell wrote this about Charlotte Ray: "Miss Ray ... although a lawyer of decided ability, on account of prejudice was not able to obtain sufficient business and had to give up ... active practice." There is apparently only one pleading in her name - a family law case (Gadley v Gadley).
She was later active in the women’s suffrage movement and the National Association of Colored Women. She also married a man whose surname was Fraim, but little more about her life after Howard University is known.
Ray passed away January 4, 1911.
Today, the Greater Washington Area Chapter Women Lawyers Division National Bar Association presents the annual “Charlotte E. Ray award” to an outstanding African-American woman from the District of Columbia Bar Association.
Sources:
Greater Washington Area Chapter Women Lawyers Division National Bar Association
civilrights.org
Drawing of Charlotte Ray commissions by NY Senate
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