Constance Baker Motley

Born September 14, 1921, in New Haven, Connecticut Died September 28, 2005, in New York, New York

When President Lyndon Johnson appointed Constance Baker Motley to the United States District Court in 1966, she became the first black woman to be a federal judge. One of the courtroom tacticians of the civil rights movement, she worked for twenty years with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She was the only woman elected to the New York Senate in 1964, and the only woman Manhattan borough president (1965-66). Beginning in 1982, she served four years as Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York. In 1986 she assumed senior judge status.