Today in 2014, Claudia House Morcom, the first Black woman to serve as a Wayne County circuit court judge, passed away. Morcom was a pivotal civil rights advocate, providing legal defense for civil rights workers in Mississippi and challenging discriminatory practices throughout her career.
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On this day in 2014, Claudia House Morcom died. Morcom was the first Black Woman to sit as a Judge on Wayne County’s circuit court. But this position was only the peak of a mountain of legal contributions while fighting for civil rights in her career. When she was a young lawyer in Detroit, fresh out of law school, she saw the vicious racism that Black Americans faced everywhere, particularly in the south. Before the Voting Rights Act of the mid-60s, she joined a coalition of lawyers who would travel to Mississippi providing legal defense for civil rights workers. After her first week, she came back to Detroit packed her belongings and moved to Mississippi for a year, fully aware of the dangers to her in the deep south. Along with representing civil rights workers, she also challenged congresspeople in court who deliberately refused to serve Black constituents. Morcom served on the bench for nearly thirty years before officially retiring. But she never retired from fighting for civil rights, continuing her activism through her final years.