Louis E. Sturns (1949- )

Louis E. Sturns (1949- )

Louis Sturns was the first African American to serve on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court. Sturns was born to Robert L. Sterns and Emma Sturns on August 6, 1949 in Henderson, Texas, located in Rusk County. He was raised in Rusk...
George Henry Brown, Jr. (1939- )

George Henry Brown, Jr. (1939- )

George Henry Brown, Jr., the first African American appointed to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court, was born on July 16, 1939 and grew up in in Memphis, Tennessee. Brown’s father Alfred was a car cleaner for the Illinois Central Railroad, and his mother Sara was a...
Louis B. Butler, Jr. (1952- )

Louis B. Butler, Jr. (1952- )

Louis Bennett Butler, Jr. became the first black justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2004 and served on the court until 2008. Butler also became Wisconsin’s first Public Defender to ever argue before the United States Supreme Court in 1988 during the trial...
Tom Colbert (1949- )

Tom Colbert (1949- )

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on December 30, 1949, Tom Colbert was the first African American Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Raised by his single mother, Edith Colbert, with four other siblings, he grew up in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, a small town near...
David B. Lewis (1956- )

David B. Lewis (1956- )

David Lewis is the first African American to serve on the Criminal Court of Appeals in Oklahoma. Born to Sylvia Lewis on April 30, 1958, in Ardmore, Oklahoma, he graduated from Ardmore High School in 1976. He got a bachelor’s degree in business economics at the...