George Lewis Ruffin

George Lewis Ruffin (16 December 1834 - 19 November 1886) was an American attorney and judge. In 1869 he was the first African American to graduate from Harvard Law School, and was elected as the first African American to serve on the Boston City Council. Ruffin was elected in 1870 to the Massachusetts Legislature. In 1883, he was appointed by the governor as a judge to the Municipal Court, Charlestown district in Boston, making him the first African American judge in the United States.

Ruffin was born to George W. (1800-1863) and Nancy Lewis Ruffin (1816-1874) in Richmond, Virginia as a free person of color, of African and European ancestry. The city had a large free black community. His parents were George W. and Nancy Lewis Ruffin. His family moved to Boston in 1853, where he was educated in the public schools.

In 1858 he married Josephine St. Pierre, who was of Afro-Caribbean, French and English descent. Together they had four sons and a daughter. Their children were Hubert, who became an attorney; Florida Ridley, a school principal and co-founder with her mother of the newspaper The Woman's Era; Stanley, an inventor; George, a musician; and Robert, who died in his first year of life.

He became a barber to support his family and read law books on the side and studied law with the partnership of Harvey Jewell and William Gaston He started publishing articles in a law journal and was admitted to Harvard Law School. and saved enough money to enroll. After graduating in 1869, the first African American to earn a law degree Harvard University, he practiced with success in Boston. He was politically active and attended the National Negro Convention of 1864 in Syracuse, New York and of 1872 in New Orleans.

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