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We have some incredibly unfortunate news from Georgia, where a woman who overcame historic obstacles to succeed in the world of law recently passed away.
Edith Jacqueline Ingram Grant, 78, was the first black probate judge in America and the first black female judge in the state of Georgia. Grant, who left her job as a teacher to embark upon a journey in the law, was encouraged to run against an incumbent judge who, in a decision that was “laced with racial epithets,” barred black members of the community from serving as poll workers on Election Day in 1966.
Grant’s Daily Report obituary details the turbulent start of her judicial career:
Grant won the 1968 election, seven months after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. But when she went to the courthouse to ask her predecessor to brief her on court operations, the judge cursed her and ordered her to get out of the office, Grant recalled. The defeated judge then closed down the court, locked the doors and turned the keys over to the Superior Court clerk, a white man, Grant said. “I just had to wait until I got in there and hit the books,” Grant recalled.
Grant served as judge for the next 36 years. In 1973, the ordinary court was renamed the probate court. She also served as president of the Georgia Coalition of Black Women. She retired in 2004.
“When I think of the strength of character and determination that it took, and the loneliness that she must have had to endure to become the first black female judge in Georgia history, I am truly awestruck and humbled,” Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton said. “The history of our country, this state, and our class of court are much better because of her contributions,” Cobb County Chief Probate Judge Kelli Wolk, president of the state Council of Probate Court Judges, said of Grant.
We here at Above the Law would like to extend our sincere condolences to Edith Jacqueline Ingram Grant’s family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time.
‘True Advocate of Equality’: Nation’s First African American Probate Judge Dies at 78 [Daily Report]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.