In 1928, Jane Bolin had just graduated from Wellesley College in the top 20 of her class. She was given the prestigious title of Wellesley Scholar. In recalling her achievements at Wellesley, she said that her “college memories were not happy ones.” “There were few sincere friendships developed in that beautiful, idyllic setting of the college, but on the whole, I was ignored outside the classroom.”
Bolin was one of only two Black students enrolled at Wellesley then, and white students would not socialize or engage with them. But she worked hard and had aspirations to become a lawyer. In 1928, there were no Black female lawyers admitted to the bar anywhere.
Her advisers discouraged her law aspirations, claiming that there would be no work for a black woman in the law field. Even her father, who was a respected Black lawyer in her hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY tried to dissuade her, telling her that the profession revealed the worst of human nature. He wanted his ambitious young daughter to be a teacher. Little did he know that Jane had already been accepted to Yale Law School. She would be the first Black woman to receive a law degree from Yale…the first of many firsts in Bolin’s life.
Jane Bolin was born on April 11, 1908, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the youngest of four children born to Gaius Bolin and Matilda Emery Bolin. Her mother, a British immigrant, died when Jane was 8 years old. Gaius Bolin was the first black man to graduate from the exclusive Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. He became a prominent lawyer and community leader in Poughkeepsie practicing law in Dutchess County for fifty years and was the first black president of the Dutchess County Bar Association. He also helped found the NAACP branch in Dutchess County. Jane spent much of her early childhood at her father’s law firm and decided that she, too, would become a lawyer. “Those leather-bound books just intrigued me,” she said.
Although Jane was born in upstate New York and away from the worst aspects of the Jim Crow South, she experienced discrimination in Poughkeepsie, nonetheless. Bolin had been shaken by photos of lynching victims published in the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis. It was a world away from her sheltered life in upstate New York, but she was determined to dedicate herself to helping others.
After attending high school in Poughkeepsie, Bolin was prevented from enrolling at Vassar College as it did not accept black students at that time. At 16 years old, she enrolled at Wellesley College. After graduating from Wellesley with a bachelor’s degree, she successfully enrolled in Yale Law School and became the first African American woman to earn a law degree from the institution as well as the first to pass the New York State Bar examination in 1932.
She married attorney Ralph Mizelle in 1933, and the couple moved to New York City. At this point, Jane Bolin’s career will be a series of firsts for Black women. Here is a partial list of Bolin’s firsts and other achievements:
She was appointed assistant corporation counsel for the City of New York.
In 1939, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed her judge of the Domestic Relations Court (later renamed Family Court), making Bolin the nation’s first black female judge.
Bolin helped families and children, serving on the boards of both the National Urban League and the Child Welfare League.
She received honorary degrees from Tuskegee Institute, Hampton University, Morgan State University, and Williams College in recognition of her lifetime of working to help others.
She served as a judge for 40 years, with her appointment being renewed three times until she was required to retire at age 70
Bolin was an activist and advocate for children’s rights and education. 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. She was a legal advisor to the National Council of Negro Women. Bolin also sought to combat racial discrimination from religious groups by helping to open a special school for black boys in New York City.
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, reviewing disciplinary cases. After a life of groundbreaking achievements, Jane Bolin died on Monday, January 8, 2007, at the age of 98 in Long Island City, Queens, New York.
Bolin left a powerful legacy, and not only in the Family Court and foster care reforms she championed. She has been lauded as a role model by Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first African American woman appointed to the federal bench, and by Judith Kaye, the first woman to serve as chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. A mural at the Dutchess County Courthouse prominently features Jane and Gaius Bolin, Sr., and the Poughkeepsie City School District’s headquarters was renamed the Jane Bolin Administration Building. And in 2017, District 35 assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry introduced a bill to rename the Queens-Midtown Tunnel the Jane Bolin Tunnel.