Helen Shores Lee

Helen Shores Lee (May 3, 1941 – July 2, 2018) was an American jurist and lawyer, serving as the first African-American female judge for the 10th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.

Early life and education Lee was born in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, on May 3, 1941. Her father was Arthur Davis Shores, a prominent civil rights attorney in Alabama and her mother, Theodora, was active in their community. Her neighborhood was a frequent target of the Ku Klux Klan and was attacked so many times it earned the nickname Dynamite Hill. Lee grew up in the segregated South, with separate facilities and entrances for black people. Given her parents' work, Lee herself often tried to resist the racism of the time throughout her adolescence. Lee tried to shoot at a car of white men threatening the family home when she was 13, but her father stopped her. In 1963, Lee's house was bombed twice within two weeks and also shot at; one attack injured Lee's mother and killed their family pet. She enrolled in the Cumberland School of Law, graduating with her Juris Doctor in 1987 and admission to the Alabama State Bar in 1988. She served on the Alabama State Ethics Commission from 1996 to 2000, and served as chairwomen from 1999 to 2000. She was the first African-American woman to serve as a judge in Jefferson County. In 2012, Lee published The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill: the Untold Story of Arthur Shores and His Family's Fight for Civil Rights, co-authored by Lee and her sister Barbara.

Lee retired in 2016. She died on July 2, 2018.

Awards and honors

In 2013, Lee was awarded the Jeana P. Hosch Woman of Valor from the YWCA In 2014, Lee was named Samford University Alumnus of the year In 2025, named to the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame