Women in History: Charlotte E. Ray, Lawyer

Charlotte E. Ray got her determination from her father. Rev. Charles Bennett Ray was a pastor at Bethesda Congregational Church. He was also an owner and editor of the Colored American, a newspaper for free blacks, no small feat in the latter part of the 1800s.

Charlotte attended the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington, D.C. At the time, it was the only school allowing attendance by African-American girls.

Howard University was established for the sole purpose of providing education to freed slaves and their descendants. But even Howard University was guilty of gender bias. Howard would never have allowed Charlotte E. Ray to attend school in the law program had she not utilized duplicity to be accepted.

Ray became a teacher at Howard University but what she really wanted was to attend Howard as a student. She was aware of the school's gender bias and had to find a way to be accepted into the law program. Ray applied but signed her name as "C. E. Ray" to cover her gender. She was accepted and graduated in 1972, becoming the first black woman in the United States to receive a law degree. She was also the first woman admitted to the Washington, D.C. Bar Association.

Sadly, even though Ray opened her own law practice in D.C., racial and gender discrimination forced her to abandon her practice and return to teaching.

There is one pleading in her name, Gadley v Gadley, a family law case.

Myra Bradwell, among the first women lawyers in the United States, owned The Chicago Legal News. In in editorial in her publication, Bradwell stated that Miss Ray "although a lawyer of decided ability, on account of prejudice was not able to obtain sufficient business and had to give up ... active practice."

Ray became active in the women's suffrage movement and was a member of the National Association of Colored Women. She married later in life but not much is known about her life after the closing of her practice.

Ray died January 4, 1911, just a few years before the passing of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote.

The Greater Washington Area Chapter Women Lawyers Division National Bar Association honors an African-American woman from the District of Columbia Bar Association with the annual "Charlotte E. Ray Award."