Politics / Law / Civil rights & activism
Cora Brown
1914–1972 · social worker, policewoman, lawyer, state senator
Cass Tech graduate, Detroit social worker and policewoman who in 1952 became the first African American woman elected to any state senate in the United States.
- Born
Bessemer, Alabama- Died
aged 58- Birth name
- Cora Mae Brown
- Also known as
- Cora Mae Brown
- Detroit years
- 1922–1950s
- Field
- Politics, Law, Civil rights & activism
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Cora Brown was born in Bessemer, Alabama, and moved to Detroit with her parents at eight in 1922; her father opened a tailor shop supported by autoworkers in a racially mixed neighborhood. She met racism early at the Bishop School and graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1931, then studied sociology at Fisk University under E. Franklin Frazier, spending summers at a Detroit Urban League camp. Back in Detroit she worked as a social worker with Depression-era families and from 1941 to 1946 as a policewoman in the Detroit Police Department's Women's Division. Those cases led her to Wayne State University's law school; she passed the bar in 1948 and practiced criminal law. In 1952 Detroit voters sent her to the Michigan Senate, making her the first Black woman elected to a state senate anywhere in the country. Active in the NAACP, the YWCA and New Calvary Baptist Church, she later served in Washington on the President's Committee on Government Contracts.
Highlights
- First African American woman elected to a U.S. state senate (Michigan, 1952)
- Policewoman in the Detroit Police Women's Division, 1941–1946
- Graduate of Cass Technical High School (1931) and Wayne State law school (1948)
- Executive director of the President's Committee on Government Contracts
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1927–1931
Cass Technical High School
She graduated from Detroit's elite public high school in 1931.
Studied here · 1946–1948
Wayne State University Law School
She studied law here after her police years and passed the bar in 1948.