[00:00:38.280] 
[music]

[00:00:35.280] 
In 1872, a U.S. Supreme Court decision declared,

[00:00:40.240] 
"The natural and proper timidity
and delicacy, which belongs to the female sex

[00:00:46.280] 
evidently unfits it for many
occupations of civil life.

[00:00:51.280] 
The harmony which belongs or should belong

[00:00:54.160] 
to the family institution is repugnant
to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct

[00:01:00.240] 
and independent career from that of her husband.

[00:01:04.360] 
The paramount destiny and mission of women

[00:01:07.440] 
are to fulfill the noble and benign
offices of wife and mother.

[00:01:12.600] 
This is the law of the creator.

[00:01:15.720] 
There are privileges and immunities
belonging to citizens of the United States

[00:01:21.040] 
which a state is forbidden to abridge.

[00:01:24.360] 
But for women,

[00:01:26.240] 
the right to admission to practice in
the court of a state is not one of them."

[00:01:31.943] 
[music]

[00:01:35.840] 
Today, every African American female attorney

[00:01:39.640] 
is a pioneer in search of justice and equality.

[00:01:44.614] 
[music]

[00:01:53.360] 
For the past ten years,

[00:01:55.040] 
the North Carolina Association
of Black Lawyers has worked to document

[00:01:59.440] 
the contributions of African American
attorneys and to analyze the place of these

[00:02:04.520] 
attorneys in the history
of the state's legal profession.

[00:02:08.480] 
This year, the Association's focus is
on the special qualities and significant

[00:02:13.760] 
contributions of African American
female attorneys.

[00:02:17.400] 
The history and development of Black

[00:02:19.240] 
female attorneys in North Carolina
is less than fifty years old.

[00:02:23.520] 
To date, there are nearly two hundred

[00:02:25.600] 
African American female attorneys in the state.

[00:02:29.240] 
This signifies a growing core of women

[00:02:32.120] 
who are defying the odds and redefining
the boundaries of the legal profession.

[00:02:37.680] 
Historically, women were deemed unfit
to practice law because they were members

[00:02:42.520] 
of the weaker sex. 

[00:02:44.360] 
Women were barred from
law schools and state bar associations.

[00:02:49.080] 
Additionally,

[00:02:50.120] 
African Americans encountered the cultural
stereotype of being thought of as

[00:02:55.400] 
inherently inferior and incapable of practicing law.

[00:02:59.880] 
These institutionalized barriers did not

[00:03:02.600] 
deter three special women
in search of justice and equality.

[00:03:07.680] 
These women distinguished themselves
in spite of the obstacles.

[00:03:12.240] 
Their pioneering efforts provided

[00:03:14.560] 
milestones for African American
female attorneys.

[00:03:18.143] 
[music]

[00:04:48.440] 
I've always felt—I've never seen
the differences in people and I've never

[00:04:52.560] 
really seen anybody I didn't like,
no matter who they are. 

[00:04:56.600] 
I've represented, as you've seen in articles,
members of the Ku Klux Klan.

[00:05:00.320] 
And I've never been clannish.

[00:05:05.160] 
We probably set up the first

[00:05:06.800] 
integrated law firm in the South,
in this area, maybe in the South.

[00:05:10.880] 
I don't know about the whole South,
but I know in the State of North Carolina.

[00:05:14.920] 

That came out of some trauma.

[00:05:19.560] 
I just move with people.

[00:05:21.320] 
And that was what the [?]
when my father said in five years.

[00:05:24.560] 
Number one, I had to get
some experience in trial work.

[00:05:28.360] 
I had to be seen as being competent.

[00:05:32.280] 
Well, I couldn't have been—
there was no place in Greensboro

[00:05:36.120] 
that would have given me a chance
to learn to try cases,

[00:05:39.360] 
but I could get that in New York.

[00:05:41.280] 
I got that. When I came back here

[00:05:43.000] 
I wasn't a greenhorn.

[00:05:44.960] 
She was somebody that the younger attorneys

[00:05:47.240] 
could go to and talk and share
experiences and learn from.

[00:05:52.160] 
The other thing is that

[00:05:54.040] 
I don't know of any lawyer who could try a case

[00:05:56.920] 
and cross-examine
a witness as well as Elreta Alexander.

[00:06:02.720] 
She was good.

[00:06:05.080] 
So you could go to court and just
sit there and watch her

[00:06:07.840] 

and learn from watching her.

[00:06:10.440] 
And so I think that was a very,

[00:06:12.400] 
very important role that she played
in terms of African American attorneys

[00:06:16.960] 
and frankly, in reference to attorneys generally .

[00:06:22.080] 
Being daily in the courts handling murder,
manslaughter, and things of that nature.

[00:06:26.600] 
I handled them.

[00:06:29.040] 
And at first it apparently was a joke
to some men, but it's not a joke.

[00:06:34.480] 
And I know first there would be one of them

[00:06:36.440] 
go back and talk to the judge then
it'd be two or three of them.

[00:06:39.520] 
And I know what they were saying,

[00:06:40.640] 
"What the hell are we going to do with Alexander?"

[00:06:42.320] 
I knew what I was going to do with them
I was going to whip the hell out of them.

[00:06:45.120] 
And it's nothing like winning.

[00:06:48.840] 
She was the type of person who could

[00:06:51.600] 
look you in the eye
and really sort of curse you out

[00:06:58.080] 
and tell you things that you have
done wrong in no uncertain terms.

[00:07:04.440] 
And you would get angry with her at the time

[00:07:07.400] 
but later on, when you
reflected on what she had said,

[00:07:10.720] 
 you realized that she was right.

[00:07:14.400] 
I think that's another
contribution that she made.

[00:07:16.880] 
In other words, she could stand there

[00:07:18.600] 
and really use what we call,
"chew you out" for twenty minutes.

[00:07:23.560] 
You would think she was angry
with you, but that was the end of it.

[00:07:27.960] 
You'd never hear another
word about it after that,

[00:07:30.280] 
but she would get it off her mind,

[00:07:32.040] 
she would make it clear.

[00:07:33.360] 
And I think there's some value in that.

[00:07:37.040] 
One of the things that I am
proud of though is, on the bench, is the

[00:07:41.840] 
deferred prosecution

[00:07:43.000] 
which is now a part of the Statutes of North
Carolina, the Head and Judgment Day.

[00:07:47.480] 
And they adopted it.

[00:07:49.160] 
They took it from my—

[00:07:50.480] 
I'm sure they took it from mine,

[00:07:52.080] 
they didn't say they took it from mine.

[00:07:53.880] 
But I had Judgment Day set up for the young

[00:07:56.320] 
people, and older people too, in order
to give them a chance rather than to

[00:08:02.400] 
suffer always the sentence they were under,
to rehabilitate themselves, and do various

[00:08:07.080] 
community service, get their lives together.

[00:08:10.600] 
What I'd call climbing
the rough side of the mountain

[00:08:13.920] 

rather than. And sometimes the cases were

[00:08:16.080] 
dismissed with the permission
of the district attorney and sometimes

[00:08:19.560] 
their sentences were lessened to give them
a chance to get involved in some

[00:08:23.840] 
constructive activity to change their habits.

[00:08:26.680] 
That was done in mass. That is, we'd have
a special day set aside for Judgment Day.

[00:08:32.280] 
And interestingly enough,
she started doing that when it was very

[00:08:38.280] 
questionable as to whether it could be done.

[00:08:42.840] 
As some lawyers would say, she
got away with it because of who she was.

[00:08:48.280] 
She was the type of person that you didn't

[00:08:50.880] 
challenge unless you knew that you were
right and she was wrong

[00:08:55.680] 
and you could not show that what
she was doing was wrong.

[00:08:59.120] 
So you didn't challenge it, you see.

[00:09:02.240] 
So she started that and it
had a great impact.

[00:09:05.360] 
And since then, it has been
really enshrined into the law

[00:09:08.920] 
and so other judges have patented
Judgement Day, the day after it.

[00:09:14.720] 
Well after it I just feel that each person has
a space to fill and they fill that space

[00:09:19.280] 
and do the best they can
with what they have to work with.

[00:09:22.160] 
I haven't done the best I could,
but I've done some of the best, some

[00:09:25.560] 
of the things I'd like to do,
but not nearly what I should have done.

[00:09:29.286] 
[music]

[00:10:41.320] 
I majored in business administration
at Spelman and I was the only student

[00:10:46.600] 
in my class who majored in that area.

[00:10:49.200] 
And of course, Spelman called it

[00:10:51.040] 
economics even though I took all
of my business courses at Morehouse 

[00:10:56.880] 
and I was the only female in
the class taking those courses.

[00:11:01.360] 
And the interesting thing about it was

[00:11:03.200] 
that the dean at Spelman tried
to discourage me from majoring in that.

[00:11:10.440] 
At the time that I came
along, the major subjects

[00:11:16.400] 
that were being

[00:11:20.720] 
pursued by young women, of course

[00:11:24.680] 
of color, was teaching, the teaching profession,

[00:11:30.440] 
that of social work, nursing profession.

[00:11:34.600] 
Those have sort of been dubbed
really "female" positions.

[00:11:38.840] 
Of course, a Black woman has a unique role

[00:11:41.080] 
because you're trying to show
that women need rights,

[00:11:46.120] 
but sometimes you've got both the

[00:11:48.920] 
the discrimination against women
and the discrimination against Blacks

[00:11:53.160] 
and you get those two together
and it's something to overcome.

[00:11:56.000] 
And I think one of her
outstanding accomplishments is her ability

[00:12:01.160] 
to say that, to explain it, and to get
people to see the implications of it.

[00:12:06.640] 
The first, and only, Black female attorney

[00:12:12.160] 
at the time that I was in college was
a woman who was a member of my church,

[00:12:20.240] 
Mrs. Rachel Harrington,

[00:12:22.760] 
who had read law as a secretary for
Colonel Walden,

[00:12:28.680] 
who was really the outstanding Black
attorney in Atlanta at the time.

[00:12:34.640] 
She read law, passed the bar,
and became an attorney

[00:12:38.720] 
and she was my Sunday school superintendent.

[00:12:41.640] 
And of course, we were very excited
when all of that happened to her.

[00:12:47.800] 
We really respected
her and looked up to her.

[00:12:52.520] 
So I really think that there
were a combination of factors,

[00:12:56.240] 
but having known Mrs. Harrington through the years,

[00:12:59.000] 

in addition to going to college,

[00:13:01.520] 
deciding that I wanted, that I liked
the subject area of law.

[00:13:05.560] 
And then I felt that that would afford an
opportunity to help people.

[00:13:12.520] 
In those days, in my case and 
I think most of the Black

[00:13:15.000] 
American attorneys at that time,
when we went into a different city

[00:13:19.600] 
we sort of checked out the lay of the land

[00:13:22.160] 
with some other Black attorney
to try to find out

[00:13:27.000] 
who to see and what to say
and what to do and what not to do.

[00:13:30.600] 
And so I recall visiting
the offices there in Winston-Salem.

[00:13:35.120] 
She and her husband were together at
that time in the practice of law.

[00:13:39.560] 
I recall meeting her and talking

[00:13:41.440] 
with her and getting advice from her
and things of that nature at that time

[00:13:46.400] 
and I did that on more than one occasion.

[00:13:49.560] 
Well, in the early days when we started practicing

[00:13:53.440] 
 I think most attorneys were general practitioners.

[00:13:59.000] 
We

[00:14:01.160] 
primarily took almost anything that came
to us, civil and criminal, in the beginning.

[00:14:09.520] 
And that was partly because

[00:14:12.320] 
there was not this great body of law
that has been developed

[00:14:18.960] 
in recent times.

[00:14:21.280] 
Law is very complicated now.

[00:14:24.280] 
There is so much law.

[00:14:26.560] 
There are so many different areas
of law until we now are working

[00:14:34.080] 
almost toward the goal of being specialists.

[00:14:36.520] 
We have a number of lawyers
who are specializing,

[00:14:41.000] 
but as far as our area of law is concerned

[00:14:43.760] 
we are civil lawyers in our law firm.

[00:14:48.120] 
I handle

[00:14:50.720] 
primarily family law matters.

[00:14:53.360] 
Domestic relations is what we
called it in the old days.

[00:14:57.080] 
I also

[00:15:01.400] 
work with my sons in the area of

[00:15:05.960] 
representing females primarily, but in
the area of sexual harassment. 

[00:15:11.160] 
We have

[00:15:14.240] 
built

[00:15:16.520] 
a practice in the area of

[00:15:19.040] 
 sexual harassment, wrongful termination,
sort of in the labor law field.

[00:15:29.280] 
There is a great demand at this time for

[00:15:33.560] 
legal services representing primarily females

[00:15:38.560] 
with the many discriminatory
practices that still exist.

[00:15:42.880] 
But when I came here
in 1975 on an appointment,

[00:15:47.800] 
there were very few women here
and I was the only lawyer woman.

[00:15:54.280] 
So actually, when,

[00:15:57.280] 
when Annie Kennedy came
I welcomed her with open arms

[00:16:01.320] 
because it gave us—at
least we knew the same kind of language.

[00:16:06.560] 
It was great to have another female
lawyer, because actually we live in this

[00:16:13.000] 
building, right in this
these great halls, chambers,

[00:16:18.240] 
we live in a man's world.

[00:16:20.880] 
And it has been, over the years,

[00:16:23.120] 
it's been terrific to have Annie here
because there are fewer and fewer lawyers.

[00:16:28.400] 
And it does help when you're working with

[00:16:31.280] 
laws to have someone who can bring
firsthand from a practice of law.

[00:16:40.040] 
In fact, to cite chapter and verse, so to speak.

[00:16:43.520] 
The most vivid memory I have

[00:16:46.520] 
of her as a legislator

[00:16:48.640] 
was standing on the floor of the House

[00:16:53.120] 
and responding to questions that lawyers

[00:16:57.600] 
had on bills protecting the civil rights

[00:17:03.360] 
of people, not just Blacks, but people like defendants,

[00:17:07.400] 
people who are charged with crime
and things of that nature.

[00:17:10.280] 
And she was excellent.

[00:17:12.200] 
I mean, she could stand on the floor and everything.

[00:17:15.920] 
But everybody would stop talking
and listen because you could tell that she

[00:17:20.160] 
knew what she was talking about.
Not just from the books,

[00:17:23.960] 
but from experience,
from her life experiences, and from her

[00:17:27.200] 
associations with people
and from the practice of law.

[00:17:31.160] 
I think that's the most vivid

[00:17:32.440] 
memory that I have of her as a legislator.

[00:17:37.440] 
It's been my observation

[00:17:41.720] 
that women work hard
and oftentime men get the credit.

[00:17:49.960] 
And I think if women are going to work hard, 

[00:17:51.480] 
they ought to get the credit for themselves.

[00:17:54.914] 
[music]

[00:19:16.360] 
My

[00:19:18.520] 
grand uncle

[00:19:21.320] 
in Jamaica was a judge.

[00:19:29.080] 
When I was a little girl I would go to visit

[00:19:32.800] 
and we'd go into a courtroom, 
that sort of thing.

[00:19:36.480] 

And he was a circuit judge and he would

[00:19:39.040] 
travel around the island
and hold court, that sort of thing.

[00:19:44.000] 
When I was out of school,

[00:19:45.960] 
he would take me along because I just
was so enamored with it.

[00:19:52.840] 
They have the British system

[00:19:55.400] 
with the robe and he wore
the wig and that sort of thing.

[00:19:58.600] 
And, oh, I just thought
this was marvelous.

[00:20:01.720] 
So I always talked about
being a barrister.

[00:20:11.320] 
This particular year
when I started law school

[00:20:14.360] 
I was coming home from the beach
with my husband and children

[00:20:20.200] 
for the summer, at the end
of the summer, and

[00:20:24.280] 
my husband,

[00:20:25.880] 
who incidentally,
is a person that you can't sit down

[00:20:29.080] 
around, you must always be
doing something.

[00:20:35.240] 
On the way home, he said to me,

[00:20:36.560] 
"What are you going to do with yourself this year?"

[00:20:39.400] 
He said,

[00:20:41.520] 
"Let me tell you what you can't do."

[00:20:44.760] 
He said, "You can't have 
any more kids, you have enough."

[00:20:48.371] 
[laughs]

[00:20:50.720] 
And so he said, "So what else
do you want to do?"

[00:20:55.280] 
and I said,

[00:20:57.800] 
"I think I'd like to go to law school."

[00:21:00.320] 
And he said, "Now I'm tired of hearing that."

[00:21:02.800] 
He said, "We'll see what we
can do about this starting tomorrow."

[00:21:09.240] 
The next day he closed his office

[00:21:11.160] 
and everything else and drove
me up to Chapel Hill.

[00:21:14.200] 
And when we got to Chapel Hill
and we came to the law school

[00:21:19.360] 
I remember running up the steps.

[00:21:22.160] 
Those were the
days when I could run up steps. 

[00:21:23.760] 
I ran up the steps and I looked all around

[00:21:28.160] 
and I said, "Oh, I would love to come to school here!"


[00:21:31.440] 
He said, "We'll see what we can do about that."

[00:21:34.520] 
And we did.

[00:21:35.960] 
He took me in to see the dean
and it was Dean Brandis at the time.

[00:21:42.680] 
We had a copy of transcript, my transcript.

[00:21:48.200] 
He always keeps one.

[00:21:49.400] 
My husband always keeps a copy
of my transcript in his files somewhere

[00:21:54.280] 
because he's always being called upon
to bring it out for one reason or another.

[00:22:02.360] 
I had not taken the LSAT.

[00:22:07.520] 
As a matter of fact,

[00:22:08.600] 
I didn't even know I had to take the LSAT.
It was just one of those things.

[00:22:13.400] 
And so Dean Brandis said,

[00:22:15.560] 
"Well,

[00:22:17.480] 
our classes started two weeks ago." And he
said, "So you go up, sit in the class

[00:22:23.480] 
that's beginning now

[00:22:25.640] 
and when you're finished with that,
come down and we'll talk about it."

[00:22:30.440] 
And I did

[00:22:31.320] 
and I enjoyed the lecture.

[00:22:37.280] 
When I came back,

[00:22:39.680] 
he said, "Well, 

[00:22:40.280] 
we'll sign you up."

[00:22:45.320] 

Whatever it is I had to do—

[00:22:46.560] 
fill out the forms and everything else.
And he said,

[00:22:53.360] 
"What are you planning to do?
Where are you going to live?"

[00:22:56.680] 
And I said, "In Fayetteville."

[00:22:58.920] 
And he said, "Oh, no."

[00:23:00.520] 
He said, "We can't do that."

[00:23:02.520] 
He said, "We have men here
who live as close as Durham

[00:23:08.400] 
and they're having a hard time commuting."

[00:23:13.480] 
First of all, it was a big surprise to us

[00:23:16.280] 
that she would even want to go to law school.

[00:23:19.040] 
She was married to a medical doctor,

[00:23:20.640] 
had a group of children and had been,
I think, a nurse or something.

[00:23:24.960] 
So that was a big surprise to us.

[00:23:28.880] 
I think that

[00:23:30.960] 
what impressed me about her
first of all was her nerve

[00:23:36.440] 
to want to go to law
school under those circumstances.

[00:23:40.440] 
Now you have to put things into context again.

[00:23:42.760] 
There weren't very many women
in law schools at that time.

[00:23:47.640] 
In my class there were two women, one graduated.

[00:23:52.440] 
In her class there were two women, as I recall,
Sylvia and another later.

[00:23:56.680] 
The other one was White.

[00:23:58.600] 
So a woman in the law school was unusual.

[00:24:05.520] 
A Black woman, even more unusual.

[00:24:07.560] 
A married Black woman with children
was even more unusual. 

[00:24:17.440] 
She was sort of the epitome
of grace and charm.

[00:24:22.760] 
She was the kind of person
that you sort of felt that

[00:24:26.960] 
you ought to open the door for

[00:24:28.400] 
before you before you walk
in that type of thing.

[00:24:32.080] 
We had a lot of fun during that year.

[00:24:35.200] 
Unfortunately, she had an accident

[00:24:37.360] 
during the year and was not
able to finish that year

[00:24:39.400] 
and she later came back, of course,
and finished finished law school.

[00:24:43.280] 
Alright, I

[00:24:46.240] 
graduated with a double degree
in music and in psychology.

[00:24:55.280] 
Alright, then I went from that and I went and took

[00:24:56.360] 
the nursing and then I went from that
and I went into education and all.

[00:25:03.280] 
As I said I like to study.

[00:25:06.880] 
I like

[00:25:08.560] 
reading and doing that sort of thing.

[00:25:11.080] 
And so I did that.

[00:25:12.440] 
I went on into education, then I finally

[00:25:14.600] 
got to the law I mean,
that sort of thing.

[00:25:18.400] 
Although,

[00:25:21.920] 
I love the law.

[00:25:24.040] 
I really do love the law.

[00:25:27.240] 
And I think that I have always
loved the law.

[00:25:35.080] 
As a little girl maybe it was just the trappings,

[00:25:37.720] 
but still.

[00:25:40.600] 
She was not the type of person
that made a lot of public announcements.

[00:25:45.960] 
You probably wouldn't see a lot about her

[00:25:47.600] 
in the newspaper, I would guess. That type of thing.

[00:25:50.360] 
But she was the kind of person
who would go in and get the job done.

[00:25:56.200] 
She was always getting into into new roles.

[00:25:58.320] 
As I recall, she worked in the
Attorney General's Office for quite some time.

[00:26:03.040] 
And as far as I know,

[00:26:04.400] 
she was probably the first Black woman
to serve as an assistant prosecutor.

[00:26:14.800] 
But hers was, "This is what I want to do

[00:26:15.400] 
and whatever the odds are, I'm going to get it done."

[00:26:18.840] 
I had a situation where,

[00:26:22.840] 
I was prosecuting then,

[00:26:25.360] 
and the students here
at Fayetteville State had begun the,

[00:26:32.160] 
the demonstrations of this sort of thing here.

[00:26:35.520] 
And I had been involved in it because

[00:26:39.640] 
my daughter June
was in that first group at Greensboro.

[00:26:47.280] 
- [Interviewer] Oh, at A&T?


[00:26:47.560] 
At A&T.

[00:26:48.920] 
She was at Bennett.

[00:26:50.480] 
She went to Bennett and she was
one of the students who was arrested.

[00:26:57.320] 
And she was put in that

[00:27:03.120] 
communicable disease, abandoned,
communicable disease—

[00:27:07.160] 
- [Interviewer] Old hospital, yes.

[00:27:08.840] 
Old hospital. And it was rough.
It was a very bad time

[00:27:14.720] 
to the extent that

[00:27:17.480] 
the sheriff or whoever it was,
the law officer, whoever it was,

[00:27:23.240] 
put the young women and the young men

[00:27:25.400] 
together, put them together in the
same rooms and what have you.

[00:27:30.280] 
And told the boys,
"There are some girls in there.

[00:27:34.400] 
Why don't you go on in and use them?"

[00:27:36.440] 
I mean, this actually happened.

[00:27:39.520] 
It actually occurred.

[00:27:44.680] 
Elreta Alexander,

[00:27:46.840] 
I had finished my internship with her and I'd been
down here everything else and what have you.

[00:27:52.680] 
I called Elreta

[00:27:54.120] 
and I said, "Elreta,
my daughter's been arrested.

[00:27:56.520] 
She is in [?]."
She said, "I'll look after her."

[00:27:59.400] 
She said, "I'll go see about her."

[00:28:01.640] 
She went out and bought a huge basket
full of all kinds of foodstuff

[00:28:10.480] 
and took it to her.

[00:28:12.760] 
They never saw a piece

[00:28:15.800] 
of the stuff that was in that basket.
The law officers took it and kept it,

[00:28:22.440] 
kept it away from them.

[00:28:27.360] 
The president of the college
at Bennett for the girls that were over

[00:28:31.520] 
there, she saw to it that they got their
work, that sort of thing, to help them.

[00:28:36.560] 
Alright. We came down here

[00:28:38.640] 
 and on a Sunday evening,
students from over at Fayetteville State

[00:28:43.800] 
who were planning
to begin the marches here

[00:28:46.960] 
came over here, sat right here in this
living room and told us, my husband

[00:28:51.000] 
and myself, what they were doing
and asked if we would help.

[00:28:54.680] 
And we said of course we would help,

[00:28:56.480] 
we'd be glad to help.

[00:28:58.520] 
My office then, downtown, became

[00:29:02.760] 
their headquarters. Rest stops and that sort of thing.

[00:29:08.520] 
And they could

[00:29:11.000] 
bring their sandwiches and stuff
and sit there in one of the rooms

[00:29:14.000] 
and everything else and eat
and just rest and then go back out.

[00:29:22.400] 
The city council met

[00:29:25.960] 
and they were talking
about what was going on.

[00:29:29.520] 
I mean, this was part of the agenda
at that time and I was there.

[00:29:34.880] 
I went to the meeting.

[00:29:42.120] 
Somebody got up

[00:29:44.000] 
for some reason and looked out the window.

[00:29:49.360] 
And when she did

[00:29:53.720] 
she said, "Oh my God."

[00:29:58.120] 
And I got up and went to the window
and here were the police

[00:30:05.600] 
in riot garb and stance

[00:30:12.560] 
and they went the whole
block of the street with their

[00:30:18.240] 
billy sticks, and they used, if I'm not
mistaken, they use a longer one

[00:30:24.520] 
when you talk about riots than they do
the little one that they just walk around with.

[00:30:28.760] 
And there they were fist to fist

[00:30:35.520] 
on that block.

[00:30:38.520] 
And I turned around to the city
council and I said, "I want you

[00:30:44.520] 
to come and look out this window."

[00:30:49.080] 
I said, "These people are asking for trouble."

[00:30:54.560] 
I said, "Yes, we have students who are
marching, who are walking,

[00:30:58.600] 
who are asking for the rights." I said, "But
these people are asking for trouble."

[00:31:03.200] 
I said, "They are going out there now
to attack these children."

[00:31:08.920] 
I said, "And we're going to have trouble in
this town." And I said, "I want you to know

[00:31:15.560] 
that as prosecutor

[00:31:18.280] 
if they ask for it

[00:31:20.560] 
and these students answer them in kind

[00:31:24.440] 
I am not going to prosecute them."

[00:31:27.720] 
Sylvia and I had spent some

[00:31:30.600] 
of our career in law school together
and I was very happy that she was willing

[00:31:36.760] 
to be an assistant in the Prosecutor's
Office in Fayetteville.

[00:31:43.120] 
The Fayetteville Bar,

[00:31:44.920] 
the Cumberland County Bar,
was probably a little skeptical about how

[00:31:49.400] 
a woman, and especially a Black
woman, would work in that position

[00:31:54.280] 
but Sylvia did a fantastically good job

[00:31:58.120] 
for the State of North Carolina
and for Cumberland County.

[00:32:01.960] 
She had a way about her for dealing with people.

[00:32:05.120] 
She understood both sides of the case—

[00:32:08.640] 
not only the plight of the victim,

[00:32:11.120] 
but the plight of the person
who was being prosecuted.

[00:32:16.080] 
And she did a good job.

[00:32:19.200] 
We were in the old courthouse building,
the old marble courthouse building

[00:32:24.240] 
on Gillispie Street,

[00:32:26.760] 
and we had a very cramped,
small little office that had about

[00:32:32.880] 
three feet on each side to turn around
in, and one telephone, and a little

[00:32:38.440] 
noisy air conditioner up in the corner.

[00:32:41.080] 
Things have changed a lot since then,
haven't they Sylvia,

[00:32:42.680] 
 at the courthouse in Cumberland County?

[00:32:48.880] 
Nobody ever, in my opinion,

[00:32:52.120] 
did a better job, a more compassionate job,
of looking after the people's business

[00:32:58.200] 
as a prosecutor for the Twelfth 
Judicial District than did Sylvia Allen.

[00:33:04.240] 
Actually, the law itself

[00:33:10.960] 
respects

[00:33:13.160] 
no one or everyone, in that

[00:33:20.080] 
it is cold.

[00:33:22.280] 
You see, it's the people that are involved.

[00:33:26.960] 
It's the people that are involved
that make the difference.

[00:33:30.280] 
And I believe that

[00:33:33.080] 
now that you find so many women

[00:33:36.280] 
involved in it—and they are lawyers, they are judges

[00:33:44.760] 
as far up as the Supreme Court—that hopefully

[00:33:50.200] 
they will bring

[00:33:53.360] 
to their interpretation of these laws

[00:34:00.840] 
more of their

[00:34:04.280] 
compassion in using that law

[00:34:09.440] 
than probably the men would
have done or they did do.

[00:34:14.743] 
[music]

[00:34:19.840] 
As the women that follow represent

[00:34:21.600] 
trailblazing contemporary pioneers
who have chosen various career paths

[00:34:26.600] 
in the legal profession,
their search for justice and equality has

[00:34:31.440] 
and is making a difference
in the lives of North Carolinians.

[00:34:36.360] 
There are nearly two hundred African-American
female lawyers in North Carolina.

[00:34:41.480] 
They work in government, private practice,

[00:34:44.720] 
educational institutions, public interest
law organizations, and the judiciary.

[00:34:51.480] 
Their motivations, hardships,
accomplishments, and strategies

[00:34:56.880] 
to overcome barriers are as
varied as their backgrounds,

[00:35:00.840] 
but each one has had a significant impact

[00:35:03.760] 
on the legal profession
as well as the communities they serve.

[00:35:10.480] 
There's no doubt that we bring

[00:35:13.280] 
a sensitivity and

[00:35:17.200] 
a concern

[00:35:19.320] 
for not only

[00:35:21.160] 
the African American community, but

[00:35:25.360] 
the community at large and specifically
children and other women.

[00:35:35.600] 
I think, too, we bring—

[00:35:43.400] 
and I'm kind of hesitant to use this word

[00:35:45.520] 
for fear that one would
take it the wrong way, but a female

[00:35:50.560] 
perspective in terms of getting things done.

[00:35:54.320] 
But Black women particularly bring

[00:35:56.680] 
something to the bench that cannot
be gathered from any other source.

[00:36:02.400] 
There is no question in my mind

[00:36:04.040] 
that my mere presence means that there are
things that used to happen that don't

[00:36:08.480] 
happen anymore, not because I have had any
impact on them, but because I am there.

[00:36:14.120] 
I think that we feel things differently,

[00:36:17.040] 
we sense things differently

[00:36:18.840] 
and in the courthouse,

[00:36:20.560] 
there's a saying about
"I have a gut feeling about things"

[00:36:23.680] 
and as long as I am not

[00:36:25.440] 
adverse to the law I will follow
that gut feeling and that gut instinct.

[00:36:29.520] 
And nine times out of ten, I am right about
the way I feel about a particular thing.

[00:36:35.280] 
I think it is more significant
from my perspective that I bring an

[00:36:41.600] 
Afrocentric perspective
to the position that I'm serving in

[00:36:45.880] 
and I feel that

[00:36:48.240] 
that is important, to be yourself,

[00:36:54.160] 
to serve as a role model
within that position.

[00:36:58.720] 
And I feel that I am
who I am within the position

[00:37:03.920] 
and I think that that is more important

[00:37:05.320] 
than being an African American female
in the position that I'm in.

[00:37:11.120] 
I have noticed in my role as lawyer,
judge that there are subtle differences

[00:37:19.120] 
in the way that women are
treated as opposed to males.

[00:37:23.320] 
One of the things that I find a little
humorous is the way that I'm addressed by

[00:37:29.720] 
most males in the courtroom
and lots of times women.

[00:37:34.440] 
They refer to me as "yes, sir" or "no, sir,"
and they immediately catch themself.

[00:37:41.280] 
I smile and they smile.

[00:37:43.560] 
I think it becomes a little more

[00:37:45.360] 
embarrassing for women because they
like to think of themselves as

[00:37:52.320] 
making

[00:37:54.240] 
ground and not treating women
in the traditional roles.

[00:37:58.800] 
But I think society has

[00:38:02.360] 
implanted certain things in all of our

[00:38:04.440] 
minds and it's very difficult
for us to overcome.

[00:38:07.840] 
But it would happen more often than I could imagine

[00:38:11.560] 
that council would say

[00:38:14.360] 
Judge [?], judge, or Mrs. Duncan.

[00:38:19.360] 
But even when I'm on the bench,

[00:38:20.960] 
the others would be
"Your Honor" and I would be "ma'am."

[00:38:25.680] 
And I hated to be picky about it,
but it just seemed to me

[00:38:30.200] 
rude and silly.

[00:38:33.480] 
The challenge, I guess, is

[00:38:37.080] 
for there to be enough

[00:38:38.840] 
women in positions like
the one that I'm in, that

[00:38:44.280] 
when you walk into a courtroom
people would automatically think

[00:38:50.120] 
that you're just as likely to be
the judge as anybody else

[00:38:53.880] 
and that's still not the case.

[00:39:00.440] 
Other than that I guess
there's the need for a general public

[00:39:04.000] 
acceptance of women in positions of
authority that is just not there yet.

[00:39:11.200] 
Historically, I believe that there are
several roles that we must play as

[00:39:17.480] 
individuals beginning in these areas,
female individuals, in these areas.

[00:39:22.560] 
You either open the doors
yourself or you stay there and keep them

[00:39:27.440] 
open so that others may be able to follow you.

[00:39:30.200] 
And I think that's important,
whether you are a pioneer or whether you

[00:39:34.400] 
certainly preserve that
which has been gained in the past.

[00:39:38.200] 
I went on lots of interviews and when
they saw that I was Black it was like

[00:39:44.120] 
shock because they could not necessarily

[00:39:47.120] 
tell that from my resume.
And I never got any of the jobs that I

[00:39:52.160] 
applied for until I went to North Carolina Central.

[00:39:56.160] 
And when I went to Central,
I had to take a substantial cut in salary

[00:40:01.160] 
in order to get started in this particular career.

[00:40:04.560] 
I do like seeing the
the reaction that I get

[00:40:08.360] 
oftentimes when I tell people
that I'm Black and they say,

[00:40:14.600] 
"Which of your parents are white?"

[00:40:17.720] 
Neither.

[00:40:19.720] 
They don't expect
us to span such a large spectrum

[00:40:25.760] 
and I don't see why they shouldn't.
They expect it of their own race.

[00:40:29.280] 
All sorts of colors for their [?],

[00:40:31.160] 
why not ours?

[00:40:34.240] 
I guess in today's fast paced world,

[00:40:36.920] 
we always want to put someone
in a niche. For your Blacks to look this way,

[00:40:41.840] 
your Whites to look this way, or you know, whatever.

[00:40:42.760] 
And I think that that may be my role,
if there is one,

[00:40:46.360] 
is to maybe to shock people out
of that type of preconception.

[00:40:51.120] 
What I find to be a reality,
an unfortunate reality, is that

[00:40:57.200] 
there is a difference in the perception
of a judge as to whether you're Black or White,

[00:41:03.960] 
as to whether you're poor or wealthy.

[00:41:06.480] 
The system does not work
the same for everyone

[00:41:09.840] 
and that is incredibly disheartening.

[00:41:12.800] 
I had one case where my client was,

[00:41:16.040] 
had been convicted of something and put on
probation and he had violated probation.

[00:41:21.880] 
The case directly before me, this
White man about thirty-eight to forty years old

[00:41:29.120] 
gets up for the same thing, 
probation violation.

[00:41:32.400] 
He had tested positive eight
times for cocaine use

[00:41:36.120] 
and the judge said, "Well,
I think you are really sincere.

[00:41:41.400] 
I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

[00:41:42.600] 
I'm going to give you another chance."

[00:41:44.320] 
My case was the case directly after this case.

[00:41:47.400] 
My client, too, had violated probation.

[00:41:50.400] 
He had tested positive for marijuana once

[00:41:53.160] 
during the period that he
was on probation.

[00:41:55.440] 
And the judge said,

[00:41:56.760] 
"I can look at you and tell you're a problem
and I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

[00:42:00.160] 
I'm going to revoke your probation.
Go to jail for five years."

[00:42:03.560] 
It's just very disheartening to realize
that we have so much work to do and we are

[00:42:10.480] 
still under a system of racism in North Carolina.

[00:42:14.480] 
This does not have anything to do with being
an African American woman

[00:42:18.680] 
but it has to do with being in a system
that still does not fully recognize us as people.

[00:42:26.560] 
I consciously chose
to practice in state government.

[00:42:30.200] 
I think the political process

[00:42:32.520] 
has a tremendous impact
on the lives of African Americans.

[00:42:36.680] 
Very few are involved in the process

[00:42:39.880] 
at the level where they can have impact on policy.

[00:42:44.760] 
I don't mean to suggest that I am at that level 

[00:42:49.120] 
but because of the nature of the work

[00:42:51.280] 
I am able to have some input,
to be a part of the process.

[00:42:55.440] 
And however small contribution I make,

[00:43:00.000] 
it is simply a gratifying chance to have.

[00:43:04.440] 
It sensitizes you to the fact
that a process which impacts

[00:43:10.200] 
on the lives of so many
Black people excludes them generally.

[00:43:14.480] 
It occurred to me when I was studying as

[00:43:17.160] 
an undergraduate that the Black
community did not have many resources.

[00:43:22.520] 
We were losing land in disproportionate amounts

[00:43:27.160] 
when I was in college.

[00:43:29.760] 
Our economic base was primarily what
we could produce from our labor.

[00:43:35.600] 
And I decided that I wanted to contribute

[00:43:39.200] 
what I could to the community
by preserving our rights to our labor

[00:43:42.840] 
and in how we marshaled our resources
surrounding our labor.

[00:43:49.280] 
Because of that, a lot of what I do
is directed towards individuals.

[00:43:55.000] 
It is important for a family to be able

[00:43:58.160] 
to have the income from the breadwinner,
whether that is the mother or the father.

[00:44:02.960] 
And in my work, I try to assure people

[00:44:06.480] 
the opportunities to get employment,
to maintain that employment,

[00:44:11.720] 
to obtain promotions,
to get redress if they are unjustly fired,

[00:44:17.640] 
and to enhance their lives
and the lives of their families

[00:44:21.440] 
as a result of that.

[00:44:22.680] 
I believe that the strength of our

[00:44:24.560] 
community lies with individuals
and within our families.

[00:44:28.960] 
I don't believe that we can solve any

[00:44:31.640] 
of the problems that we have unless
we have a good family base.

[00:44:34.320] 
And, of course, our
individual economic destinies

[00:44:39.320] 
impact what contributions we can
make to the community as a whole.

[00:44:44.000] 
So I,

[00:44:44.640] 
I derive satisfaction from being able
to provide that service to individuals.

[00:44:50.480] 
Having practiced now for nine years in Wake County

[00:44:55.000] 
seeing clients come back
over the years who are satisfied,

[00:44:59.840] 
who referred others,
who seem to have really appreciated

[00:45:04.000] 
what has been done for them
and particularly joyful since I do bankruptcy

[00:45:12.360] 
and being able to help people save their homes.

[00:45:15.400] 
I mean, people who are
about to be foreclosed on.

[00:45:17.600] 
I mean, I file those papers
and tell the creditors hold off.

[00:45:21.840] 
They're not going anywhere.

[00:45:24.240] 
That really makes you feel good

[00:45:26.480] 
to know that you have done something

[00:45:28.080] 
for somebody who has just perhaps fallen
on hard times, but then to see them come

[00:45:33.160] 
back around and say,
"Well hey now, I've got these credit cards

[00:45:37.800] 
again but, I am on solid foundation.

[00:45:41.720] 
My illness is over." Or,
"I'm able now to get back on my feet."

[00:45:47.160] 
That really makes you feel good.

[00:45:49.720] 
It gives me a lot of pride to be able
to walk in the courtroom as a Black female

[00:45:54.440] 
and do my job and do a good job
at it, or do a very good job.

[00:45:59.600] 
So I think that it's been significant
in that I think I've given courage

[00:46:04.280] 
and hope and a lot of pride
to other Black young men and women.

[00:46:10.280] 
For the younger members of my family

[00:46:11.960] 
especially, I do know that I've been able
to say to them "you can do it," not so much

[00:46:17.560] 
through my words, but through
my actions and my presence.

[00:46:21.440] 
I think that African American women
have to learn how the game is played.

[00:46:29.720] 
I think that we are very analytical
people. And so, we have a tendency to

[00:46:40.320] 
vote or react without conscience and
without analytical mind, and therefore—

[00:46:49.800] 
I'd like to give an example, say

[00:46:53.000] 
when one person on the team
has made a suggestion that needs votes

[00:47:01.680] 
and you give those votes because,
that person gives you that vote because

[00:47:08.840] 
they could have voted another way, but it
really doesn't impact on them that much.

[00:47:14.880] 
Then when the man comes up

[00:47:17.320] 
and he needs the vote and you sit there
and you analyze and it doesn't really

[00:47:22.840] 
impact on you that much, but you say
no, I'm not going to vote that way.

[00:47:29.240] 
And I think that this is what I call

[00:47:32.880] 
the difference in women growing up
playing individually with the dolls

[00:47:40.480] 
and the games with the dolls,
rather than with the sports and knowing

[00:47:45.960] 
who is the general
and who are the followers.

[00:47:52.640] 
And I think that the time has come

[00:47:54.400] 
for some very straight talk
with some very straight answers.

[00:47:59.000] 
So, the strategies depend upon the
individual more so than the situation.

[00:48:06.560] 
And I have accepted the fact
that I am a risk taker.

[00:48:09.840] 
I think it's something that I owe to my children.

[00:48:13.800] 
It is the one area that
I am most maternalistic, I think.

[00:48:18.800] 
I feel very strongly
that by the time my children have

[00:48:22.600] 
an opportunity to be where I am
it is my responsibility to make sure

[00:48:27.600] 
that I have done everything that I
can to make some positive changes.

[00:48:32.320] 
The biggest change I've seen is
that Black women have become managers.

[00:48:36.840] 
You also see those in a corporate setting,
you'll see us in the judiciary.

[00:48:43.440] 
Particularly at the district court level
and you'll also see us more often,

[00:48:47.480] 
superior court and briefly,
of course, at court of appeals.

[00:48:52.360] 
We are no longer—at one point we only

[00:48:54.880] 
did solo practitioners or just staff
attorneys for legal services offices,

[00:48:59.880] 
but now you see us in

[00:49:01.800] 
places in which we are seen and in which we
hold positions of power and authority.

[00:49:06.920] 
And I think that sends a signal to not only

[00:49:10.800] 
the Black race in itself,
but also to the court majority culture

[00:49:17.720] 
of what we're capable of doing
and the struggles that we've had.

[00:49:22.040] 
Several things I have observed
in looking at how we have emerged.

[00:49:27.360] 
And it seems that because a lot
of particular positions were

[00:49:33.440] 
out of reach for us,

[00:49:34.720] 
particularly in the seventies,
that we then spread out and started

[00:49:39.480] 
carving out these niches for ourselves
in all of the various areas of practice—

[00:49:43.600] 
particularly in government, as far as
district attorneys, state government

[00:49:49.200] 
and in private practice—

[00:49:50.920] 
 in counties that a lot of other people
wouldn't think about going to,

[00:49:55.920] 
where there would be one or
two of us around the state.

[00:49:59.760] 
And in the judiciary,

[00:50:01.800] 
we took advantage of the
the movement to be more inclusive,

[00:50:06.360] 
to really move forward and take
positions around the state.

[00:50:10.760] 
So I think that we added

[00:50:14.120] 
some momentum to what the Black men had
already been doing in the sixties when we came

[00:50:19.000] 
out in the seventies, which was really our
opportunity, the only opportunity we had.

[00:50:23.280] 
We came out in numbers in the late seventies

[00:50:27.360] 
and we then added momentum to this whole

[00:50:29.680] 
struggle for equality by bringing
the combined impetus of race and gender.

[00:50:37.600] 
And I think now what we're just beginning
to do is appreciate and understand how our

[00:50:41.840] 
style, the peculiar style,
a particular style we bring

[00:50:46.440] 
to the practice of law—
a different way of being assertive,

[00:50:49.400] 
a different way of being sympathetic
and empathetic, a different way of even

[00:50:52.840] 
understanding legal issues and analyzing
them, a different persistence of

[00:50:58.640] 
perseverance, a steady
perseverance to doing the paperwork,

[00:51:04.960] 
almost a detail, a feminine detail,
way of dealing with quality.

[00:51:11.040] 
So certain particular female

[00:51:13.600] 
and African American
characteristics that we brought

[00:51:15.880] 
I think have added momentum and variety

[00:51:18.120] 
and support for the struggle
that the African American men had started

[00:51:22.920] 
in the 1800s when we really didn't even
have an opportunity because of being forbidden

[00:51:29.560] 
to being involved in the area to actually
practicing in significant numbers.

[00:51:34.040] 
[music]