July 16, 1899 - Eunice Roberta Hunton Carter
July 16, 1899 - Eunice Roberta Hunton Carter was a Black American lawyer and the first Black woman to be a district attorney in the state of New York was born in Atlanta, GA, on this date in 1899. She broke down racial and gender barriers by becoming one of New York's first Black American female lawyers, and then becoming one of the first district attorneys of color in the United States. She attended Smith College in North Hampton, Massachusetts, and graduated cum laude with both a Bachelors and Masters degrees, in 1921. Ten years later she received her law degree from Fordham Law School and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1934. After a short time in private practice, she began working in the district attorney’s office handling low-level criminal prosecutions. While working with several prostitution cases, she suspected a link with the underworld. She noticed the defendants using the same stories, being represented by the same law firms, and if fined the same bondsmen would ap...