A lynching in the family inspired Michigan’s first Black woman elected justice to pursue the law
Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Justice Kyra Harris Bolden is the first Black woman to be elected to the Michigan Supreme Court. Her victory in November reaffirmed a liberal majority on a court where five of the seven justices now are women. She says her journey really began generations ago, when her great-grandfather was lynched in Tennessee and the family fled north. That act of racial terror inspired Bolden to get a law degree and serve on Michigan’s House Justice Committee, where she pursued criminal justice reform and domestic violence prevention. She says she wants families to see the justice that was denied to her own family.
