Jane Bolin

Jane Matilda Bolin (April 11, 1908 – January 8, 2007) was an American attorney and judge. She was the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to join the New York City Law Department. Bolin became the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States when she was sworn into the bench of the New York City Domestic Relations Court in 1939. and her mother, Matilda Ingram Emery, was an immigrant from the British Isles who died when Bolin was 8 years old. Bolin's father practiced law in Dutchess County for fifty years and was the first black president of the Dutchess County Bar Association.

After attending high school in Poughkeepsie, Bolin was prevented from enrolling at Vassar College because it did not admit black students at the time. At 16, she enrolled at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she was one of only two black freshmen. She graduated from Wellesley in 1928 in the top 20 of her class. A career adviser at Wellesley College tried to discourage her from applying to Yale Law School due to her race and gender. Nevertheless, in 1931, she became the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School She married attorney Ralph E. Mizelle in 1933, with whom she practiced law in New York City. Bolin ran unsuccessfully for the New York State Assembly as a Republican candidate in 1936. For twenty years, she was the only black female judge in the country. She remained a judge of the court, renamed the Family Court in 1962, for 40 years, with her appointment being renewed three times, until she was required to retire aged 70. She worked to encourage racially integrated child services, ensuring that probation officers were assigned without regard to race or religion, and publicly funded childcare agencies accepted children without regard to ethnic background. the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on Harlem,

Legacy

After she retired in 1979, Bolin volunteered as a reading instructor in New York City public schools for two years and served on the New York State Board of Regents,

Bolin and her father feature prominently in a mural at the Dutchess County Court House in Poughkeepsie and the Poughkeepsie City School District's administration building is named for her. During her lifetime, judges including Judith Kaye and Constance Baker Motley cited Bolin as a source of inspiration for their careers. Upon her death, Charles Rangel spoke in tribute to Bolin on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2017, Jeffrion L. Aubry introduced a bill in the New York State Assembly to rename the Queens–Midtown Tunnel the Jane Bolin Tunnel. Bolin is interred at Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery.