Joseph C. Howard, Sr.

Joseph Clemens Howard Sr. (December 9, 1922 – September 16, 2000) was the first African American to win an election as judge for the Baltimore City Supreme Bench and was later appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, becoming the first African American to serve on that bench as well. but was actually a daughter of Thomas D. Lewis (1846–1909) and Mary Adeline Tann (1855–1939) of Fayette, Iowa, both members of a farming colony of free people of color that settled in Northeast Iowa in 1853. Joseph's grandfather Lewis had the distinction of being a private in the 38th Regiment USCT, one of four USCT units that were the first US troops to march into Richmond, Virginia when it fell in April 1865. Joseph's great-uncle Theodore Wright Lewis (1853–1922), an AME pastor who served churches in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas was one of the founding members of the NAACP in the Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, Illinois area. His father was a lawyer and one of the original founders of the National Bar Association, an association of African-American attorneys.

Howard served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946. During World War II, he commanded Filipino troops and ran a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain.

Howard was a probation officer with the Supreme Bench of Baltimore, Maryland from 1958 to 1960. he was the only black player on the team. During a 1944 game against the Indiana University, his coach yelled out to the Iowa defense: "We gotta stop that nigger", referring to the opposing team's running back. Howard immediately walked up to his coach and asked him to apologize; he didn't, and Howard quit the team. Later at the Drake University Law School, he became the first African-American student admitted to the Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity. He earned his Bachelor of Laws in 1955 and was married to Gwendolyn Mae London that same year. Howard received a Master of Arts from Drake University in 1957 and a Juris Doctor from Drake University Law School in 1968.

Law practice

In 1959, after they moved to Baltimore, Maryland, Howard passed the Maryland bar exam and then started a law firm (Howard & Hargrove) with his brother, Charles P. Howard, and John R. Hargrove Sr. (who also went on to become a U.S. district judge). In 1964, Howard became assistant state's attorney in Baltimore and later became the first African-American chief of the trial section of the state's attorney's office. Two years into the job, Howard criticized his superiors and Baltimore police for pursuing harsher penalties against alleged black rapists when the victims were white than the penalties they sought when the victims were black.

State judicial service

Prior to 1968, vacancies on the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City were filled by the Governor of Maryland with white males and usually confirmed by the voters of Baltimore. In 1968, 81 of the 82 judges on Maryland's appellate and circuit courts where white males.

Written works "Administration of Rape Cases in the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland" (1968) "Why We Organize," Journal of Public Law (1971) "Employment Practices in the Administration of Justice Under the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City," (1975) "Racial Discrimination in Sentencing," Judicature (1975)