Roger Williams Law School To Honor RI's 1st Black, Female Lawyer

BRISTOL, RI — Roger Williams University's law school is taking a step to celebrate the legacy of a little-known Rhode Island figure. On Sept. 10, the school will dedicate a classroom to Dorothy Russell Crockett Bartleson, the state's first black, female lawyer.

Crockett, born in 1910, passed the bar exam in 1932, making her only the seventh female lawyer in the state. According to RWU, she was the only woman admitted to the Rhode Island bar during the 1930s and the only black woman to do so until the 1970s.

"The Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom dedication is meaningful for the RWU Law community because there is a through line from Dorothy to our student body, which is now majority female and increasingly made up of students of color," said the school's Law Dean, Michael Yelnosky.

The dedication ceremony for Law 285 will be held in the Honorable Bruce M. Selya Appellate Courtroom at 4 p.m. Citations from the offices of Governor Gina Raimondo, Congressman David Cicilline and Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza will be presented, and Crockett's daughter, Dianne Bartleson, will be in attendance to share photos and speak about her mother.

"I would like my mother to be remembered as a pioneer, a trailblazer," Bartleson said. "Any time a black person is the first to do something it is important, because all of the advances that are possible for us in this day and age — they all rely on what our ancestors have done in the past. Becoming an attorney is an accomplishment, and to have become the first black woman in the state to do so, that’s an accomplishment. So I’m really glad this research is being done."

Crockett's story was discovered by researchers working on the First Women Attorneys of Rhode Island project in 2017 and 2018. Court records, genealogical resources and newspaper archives have been used to fill in the details.