Ruth Whitehead Whaley
Ruth Whitehead Whaley (February 2, 1901 – December 23, 1977) was the third African American woman admitted to practice law in New York in 1925[1] and the first in North Carolina in 1933.[1][2] She was the first Black woman to graduate from Fordham University School of Law, where she graduated cum laude in 1924.[2]
Early life
[edit]Whaley was born on February 2, 1901, in Goldsboro, North Carolina.[3] Both of her parents, Charles A. Whitehead and Dora (née Cox) Whitehead, were school teachers.[4] She was a congregant of the AME Zion Church.[5]
Ruth C. Whitehead married Herman S. Whaley in 1920 in Goldsboro.[6] Her husband encouraged her to study law despite the difficulties of racism. The couple had two children, Herman W. Whaley and Ruth M. (Whaley) Spearman.[7]
Education
[edit]Whaley attended Livingstone Prep School and Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina,[7] a historically Black college (HBCU) founded in 1879. She graduated in June 1919 after earning an A.B. degree.[8] After college, she worked as a teacher at the North Carolina State School for the Deaf in Raleigh.[9]
Career
[edit]In 1925, Whaley passed the New York bar exam, becoming the third black woman to practice law in New York. She also became the first black woman to pass the bar exam in North Carolina, when she returned to Goldsboro in 1933.[10] Jim Crow laws made it very hard for black lawyers to practice in North Carolina, even up to the mid 1900s, but with the assistance of family friend and attorney Hugh Dortch, she was able to get a license by reciprocity.[10][11][12] The license was mostly ceremonial, as the state did not want her to actually practice law in North Carolina.[13] She never did practice there, returning to New York after the ceremony (making Elreta Alexander-Ralston the first black woman to practice law in North Carolina over ten years later, in 1947).[12]
Whaley built a private practice in New York, specializing in civil service law, where she represented local black government employees. She frequently argued in front of the Second Court of Appeals and won landmark cases in the area. At one point, she represented her own husband. She maintained her private practice until 1944, when she prepared to run for a city council seat.[10]
Throughout her life, Whaley was active in Democratic party politics.[14] She was the first Black woman candidate chosen to represent the interests of Tammany Hall in the City Council election of 1945.[15] This made her one of the first black women across the whole U.S. to be nominated by a major polictical party.[10]
Whaley was a shrewd commentator on race and gender issues of her time.[16] In 1949, Whaley penned an essay entitled "Women Lawyers Must Balk Both Color and Sex Bias," in which she described the "penalty" of women, and especially minority women, lawyers who must outperform their male colleagues lest "the overlooked errors of a male colleague become the colossal blunders of the woman."[17] Since the legal profession had been for centuries a "male precinct," and biases against women were still strong in the 1940s, women were frequently blamed for men's mistakes and pushed out of the field. Her essay noted the lack of opportunities for female attorneys, the pressure to perform extra community service, the requirement of near-perfect performance, and how clients would rationalize that performance as the work of one black woman who broke the norm, rather than allowing it to breach their stereotypes.[1]
Whaley held appointed positions in New York City including Director of Staff and Community Relations in the Department of Welfare and Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Buildings.[18] From 1951 until 1973 she served as the Secretary of the New York City Board of Estimate.[2]
Whaley was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority.[19] She served as the Vice President of the National Council of Negro Women and was the founder and former President of the Negro Business and Professional Women's Club.[14] She also served as a member of the Fordham University Council.[17]
A longtime resident of Harlem, she retired from the Secretary of the New York City Board of Estimate in 1973.[18][20] She died on December 23, 1977, and is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Yonkers.[7]
Legacy
[edit]On June 8, 2000, the Family Academy, then an alternative public school in Manhattan that is now P.S. 241, named their auditorium after Whaley. The Black Law Students Association at Fordham University Law School named their annual award the Ruth Whitehead Whaley Award in 1979.[21] She was inducted into the alumni Hall of Honor at Fordham University on October 22, 2014.[22]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Smith, Jr, J. Clay (1993). Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 209, 404–405. ISBN 0812231813.
- ^ a b c "Ruth W. Whaley, 76, Lawyer and City Aide". The New York Times. December 25, 1977 – via ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index.
- ^ "United States Social Security Death Index: Ruth Whaley, Dec 1977". FamilySearch.org. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 20 May 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
- ^ "United States Census, 1910: Ruth Whitehead in household of Charles Whitehead, Goldsboro, Wayne, North Carolina, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 107, sheet 10B, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration". FamilySearch.org. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
- ^ Lewis, Kerima M. (2008). Finkelman, Paul (ed.). Encyclopedia of African American history, 1896 to the present: from the age of segregation to the twenty-first century. Oxford University Press – via Oxford African American Studies Center.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - ^ "North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979: Herman S. Whaley and Ruth C. Whitehead, 1920". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
- ^ a b c "Ruth W. Whaley lawyer, buried". New York Amsterdam News (1962-1993). January 7, 1978 – via ProQuest: Historical Newspapers.
- ^ Smith, Jr., J. Clay (1998). "Legal Profession Followed by Nation's Best Known Socialites by Edith Spurlock Sampson, 1935". Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers. USA: University of Michigan Press. pp. 18. ISBN 0472108832.
- ^ "Women Who Matter: Ruth Whitehead Whaley". New Pittsburgh Courier (1959-1965), National Edition. April 10, 1965 – via ProQuest: Ethnic NewsWatch.
- ^ a b c d "Ruth W. Whaley 1901-1977 (F-74)". NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 2023-12-18. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
- ^ "Honoring Judge Elreta Alexander '45, the First Black Woman to Graduate From Columbia Law". Columbia Law. 2020-12-16. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
- ^ a b Timmons-Goodson, Patricia (2012). ""Darlin', The Truth Will Set You Free" – A Tribute to Judge Elreta Melton Alexander" (PDF). Elon Law Review. 4 (1): 161.
- ^ Inge, Leoneda; Jurney, Joe (2022-05-26). "Historical marker dedicated to first Black woman licensed to practice law in North Carolina". WFAE 90.7 - Charlotte's NPR News Source. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
- ^ a b "Ruth W. Whaley, 76, Lawyer and City Aide". The New York Times. December 25, 1977 – via ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index.
- ^ "Tammany Hall Candidate Is Ex-School Marm". New York Amsterdam News. September 22, 1945.
- ^ Mack, Kenneth Walter (2002). "A Social History of Everyday Practice: Sadie T.M. Alexander and the Incorporation of Black Women into the American Legal Profession, 1925-1960". Cornell Law Review. 87 (6): 1420, 1463.
- ^ a b "Hall of Honor – Ruth Whitehead Whaley". Fordham University – Office of the President. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
- ^ a b "The Ladies: Can't Keep 'Em Down". The New York Age. July 12, 1951 – via FultonHistory.com.
- ^ Becque, Fran (2019-03-26). "Ruth Whitehead Whaley, Sigma Gamma Rho, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2019". Fraternity History & More. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
- ^ Slack, Sara (January 27, 1973). "Ruth Whaley Retires ... She Served N.Y. 49 Years!: Sara Speaking". New York Amsterdam News (1962-1993) – via Proquest: Historical African American Newspapers.
- ^ Pinental, Edwin (March 6, 1983). "Alumnus Receives Law Award". The Fordham Ram. Retrieved November 2, 2016 – via Fordham University Libraries.
- ^ "Fordham University Alumni Inducted into Hall of Honor 2014". Fordham University Libraries. Fordham University. October 22, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
- J. Clay Smith, ed., Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers, 2000.
- J. Clay Smith, Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844–1944, 1999.