Robert D. Glass

Robert Davis Glass (November 28, 1922 – November 27, 2001) was the first African American justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, serving from 1987 to 1992. He was a plaintiff in McKissick v. Carmichael, which desegregated the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1951.

Early life Glass was born into poverty in the racially segregated Deep South, in Wetumpka, Alabama. His parents, Isaiah and M. E. (Jackson) Glass, were a farmhand and a domestic worker. His family was too poor to afford schoolbooks, so he only began attending school at the age of ten. His mother's employer, a judge, mentored Glass, inviting him to observe court proceedings and discussing cases with him while Glass worked as his caddie.

Shortly after high school, Glass enlisted in the US Army during World War II, serving from 1943 to 1946 and earning the Good Conduct Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and the Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Medal. He was discharged with the rank of sergeant. The US Supreme Court declined to hear the case in June 1951. McKissick and four other African Americans were admitted to the UNC School of Law a week later. Glass became president of the Connecticut State Federation of Black Democratic Clubs, where he befriended Gerald Lamb, a Waterbury resident and Connecticut's first Black state treasurer. Lamb recommended him to Governor John N. Dempsey for a judicial appointment.

Glass capped his distinguished career by serving as the first African American Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. He was nominated by Governor William A. O'Neill and served from June 22, 1987 until November 28, 1992, when he reached the court's mandatory retirement age of 70. Doris Glass was a native of Norwich, Connecticut, and had persuaded her husband to move to Connecticut in the first place.

The Honorable Robert D. Glass Courthouse in Waterbury was named in his honor on May 19, 2008. In 2017, he was inducted into Silas Bronson Library’s Waterbury Hall of Fame.