BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: JANE BOLIN

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Jane Bolin (1908-2007) enjoyed a number of firsts during her lifetime. She was the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, the first to join the city’s law department and the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States.

Born on April 11, 1908, in Poughkeepsie, NY, Bolin was the youngest of four siblings. Her father, Gaius Charles Bolin, was the first black to graduate from Williams College and became a lawyer. Her mother, Matilda, a white Englishwoman, died when Bolin was eight. Bolin graduated from high school in Poughkeepsie and was one of two black students in her class at Wellesley College.

She lived off campus with the other black student while most of the white students ignored her. In a 1974 essay in Wellesley After Images, she said:

“There were a few sincere friendships developed in that beautiful, idyllic setting of the college but, on the whole, I was ignored outside the classroom. I am saddened and maddened even nearly half a century later to recall many of my Wellesley experiences but my college days for the most part evoke sad and lonely personal memories. These experiences perhaps were partly responsible for my lifelong interest in the social problems, poverty and racial discrimination rampant in our country.

I report my memories honestly because this racism too is part of Wellesley’s history and should be recorded fully, if only as a benighted pattern to which determinedly it will never return and, also, as a measure of its progress.”

A career adviser at Wellesley tried to discourage her from applying to Yale Law School because of her race and gender, but Bolin always knew she wanted to be a lawyer. In 1931, she became the first black woman to receive a law degree from Yale and passed the New York state bar exam the following year. She practiced with her father for a short period and then with her first husband, Ralph E. Mizelle. In 1937, she was named Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, serving on the Domestic Relations Court.

On July 22, 1939, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed 31-year-old Bolin as a judge of the Domestic Relations Court becoming the first black female judge. In 1941, she gave birth to her only child, a son, Yorke Bolin Mizelle. After her husband died in 1943, she balanced motherhood and a career. “I don’t think I short-changed anybody but myself,” she said. “I didn’t get all the sleep I needed, and I didn’t get to travel as much as I would have liked, because I felt my first obligation was to my child.” She married a minister, Walter P. Offutt Jr., in 1950. He died in 1974.

Five years later, after having served on the bench for 40 years, Bolin retired. With Judges Justine Wise Polier and Hubert Delaney she achieved two major changes: the assignment of probation officers to cases without regard for race or religion; and a requirement that private child-care agencies that received public funds had to accept children without regard to ethnic background.

An activist for children’s rights & education, Bolin, after retirement, volunteered as a tutor in math and reading for children in the New York City public school system. Bolin devoted much of her life to community activities and served on numerous boards including those of the Wiltwyck School for Boys, the Dalton School, the Child Welfare League of America, New Lincoln School, United Neighborhood Houses, Neighborhood Children’s Center, and the local and national NAACP.

She also served on the New York State Board of Regents and received honorary degrees from Tuskegee Institute, Williams College, Hampton University, Western College for Women and Morgan State University. Bolin died at the age of 98 on January 8, 2007, in Queens, NY.