Violet King Henry
| Violet King Henry | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Violet Pauline King 18 October 1929 Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Died | 1981 Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Known for | First Black Canadian woman lawyer |
Violet Pauline King Henry (1929-1981) was the first black woman lawyer in Canada, the first black person to graduate law in Alberta and the first black person to be admitted to the Alberta Bar. She was also the first woman named to a senior management position with the American national YMCA.
King studied at Crescent Heights High School, where she was president of the Girls Association in grade 12 and had her yearbook captioned with her unusual intention to study criminal law. She started at the University of Alberta in 1948, joining the feminist Blue Stocking Club (modelled after the ), serving as Vice-President of the Students Union and the representative of the Students’ Union to the National Federation of Canadian University Students. She became class historian for her final year and was the Alberta representative to the International Student Services Conference in Hamilton in 1952. To finance her studies, she taught piano. An active student, King was one of just four students to receive an Executive "A" gold ring at Color Night, the university's annual celebration of student contributions to the university – the other three students were future premier Peter Lougheed, Ivan Head (future advisor to Pierre Trudeau), and lawyer Garth Fryett.
When King started her law degree, there were just three women in a class of 142. King graduated from her law degree at the University of Alberta in 1953 and was admitted to the Alberta bar in 1954. At the time, these accomplishments were reported prominently by newspapers, including The Calgary Herald, The Albertan, and The Edmonton Journal.
Her father, John King, and his extended family moved to Amber Valley, Alberta in 1911, as part of a group of African American farmers migrating from Oklahoma to Alberta, both as part of the Great Migration and to avoid racist laws. They settled in Keystone, Alberta (now Bretton, Alberta) southwest of Edmonton. They came to Canada as part of a Canadian government campaign to entice Southern US farmers to the Canadian Prairies, although Clifford Sifton's plan had expected white settlers.
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