Constance Baker Motley born - September 14, 1921

On this day in 1921, Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be named a federal court judge, was born. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Greetings everyone, Welcome to This Day in History Class,
where we bring you a new tidbit from history every day.
Today is September. The day was September nine. Constance Baker

(00:29):
Motley was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Motley was the
first black woman elected to the New York State Senate
and the first black woman to be named a Federal
Court judge. Constance was the ninth of twelve children. Her parents,
Willoughby Alba Baker and Rachel Baker, immigrated to the United
States from the island of nevas. Constance's father worked as

(00:53):
a chef at a private club associated with Yale University,
but their family was one of modest means. Her mother
founded the New Haven chapter of the Inn Double a
c P. Though there were not a ton of black
people in New Haven when she was a child, Constance
learned about black history through her church. In high school,

(01:14):
she became more interested in politics, race relations, law, and
black history. During this time, she served as president of
the city's Youth Council and secretary for New Haven's Adult
Community Center. When she was fifteen years old, she decided
she wanted to become a lawyer. She graduated with honors

(01:35):
from New Haven High School in nineteen thirty nine, but
she could not afford to pay for her college tuition.
She began working for the local branch of the National
Youth Administration, a job she got thanks to her administrative
skills and experience in public service. After a philanthropist named
Clarence Blakesley heard her speak at a meeting, he offered

(01:57):
to pay her way through college in law school. She
took him up on the offer, and she went to
Fisk University, then transferred to New York University, where she
graduated with an economics degree in nineteen forty three. Three
years later, she graduated from Columbia University Law School. Constance
later said that people did not believe she would be

(02:19):
successful in the legal profession, but in her last year
of law school, she was selected to be a law
clerk for Third Good Marshal, the Chief Council of the
n double a CP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or
the l d F. Over the years, Marshal would become
a mentor to Constance. At the time, the LDF was

(02:40):
challenging the separate but equal standard that said public accommodations
could be racially segregated as long as the facilities were equal.
In nineteen forty six, she married Joel Wilson Motley, a
real estate insurance broker, and they later had a child.
She stayed at the LDF for twenty years, becoming assistant

(03:01):
counsel and then later the organization's principal trial lawyer. When
she was a principal legal counsel, she worked on civil
rights cases that involved ending discrimination in education, housing, employment, transportation,
and public accommodations. She prepared the draft complaint for the
case that turned into the landmark US Supreme Court case

(03:24):
Brown Versus Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court
ruled in favor of the LDF, and Motley would go
on to appear in state and federal courts around the
country to argue cases on segregation and issues raised by
Brown v. Board. She played an important role in many
lawsuits the inn double a CP filed in major cases

(03:45):
that coincided with the emergence of the civil rights movement.
From nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty five, Motley was
also a member of the New York State Advisory Council
on Employment and Unemployment insurance. After the death of activists
Meger Evers, with whom she had worked closely, she resigned
from the LDF and turned to government work full time.

(04:08):
She served out the unexpired term of New York State
Senator James Watson and one re election in nineteen sixty four.
In office, she remained focused on housing, employment, and education.
In nineteen sixty five, she was elected president of the
Manhattan Borough, becoming the first woman to head any of

(04:29):
the five boroughs, and the next year, President Lyndon B.
Johnson named her a judge in the U S District
Court for the Southern District of New York. Conservative judges
and politicians protested this appointment, but she was sworn into
office in September of nineteen sixty six. Motley died of

(04:49):
congestive heart failure in two thousand five. Throughout her career
in law and politics, she was recognized for being a
respected jurist and for being dedicated to fighting for d segregation,
civil rights demonstrators, other issues of racism and discrimination, and
matters as varied as First Amendment, protest rights, and sex discrimination.

(05:12):
I'm Eves Jeffcote, and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you have
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(05:41):
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