Jane Cleo Marshall Lucas

Jane Cleo Marshall Lucas (1920-2013) was the first African American female to pass the Maryland bar exam.[1][2]

Lucas was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan in June 1920 to Edson S. and Angelina (Lina) Marshall. She attended Howard University after obtaining a scholarship in 1937. She studied Political Science there and graduated June 13, 1941 with a Magna Cum Laude designation. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1944 and passed the bar exam. In 1945, she married Wendell M. Lucas.[3][4][5] Lucas was a former captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps and Tuskegee Airman.

She worked for an Atlanta attorney before taking and passing the Maryland bar exam in 1946. She thus became the first African American female admitted to practice law in Maryland. Marshall achieved another historical first the same year by becoming the first female full-time faculty member of Howard University School of Law. Thus, due to Lucas becoming an educator, Juanita Jackson Mitchell has the distinction of becoming the first African American female to actually practice law in Maryland in 1950.[6] Lucas resigned from the faculty in 1950, and eventually settled with her husband permanently in the Washington, D.C area.[7] She died November 4, 2013 in Burtonsville, Maryland.

See also

References
  1. Smith, John Clay (1999). Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812216851.
  2. Banks, Taunya Lovell (2004). "Setting the Record Straight: Maryland's First Black Women Law Graduates" (PDF). Maryland Law Review.
  3. The University of Michigan Law School Alumni Directory, 1859-1981. University of Michigan Law School. 1981.
  4. Carle, Susan D. (2005-08-22). Lawyers' Ethics and the Pursuit of Social Justice: A Critical Reader. NYU Press. p. 96. ISBN 9780814716397.
  5. Law school alumni directory, 1860-1950. University of Michigan Law School. 1951.
  6. "Juanita Jackson Mitchell, MSA SC 3520-2306". msa.maryland.gov. Retrieved 2019-08-29.
  7. Smith, John Clay (2000). Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472086467.
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