Juanita Kidd Stout (1919-1998) aspired to be a lawyer when few African Americans and few women were in the profession. When Stout was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she became the first African American woman to be elected to the bench. Almost 30 years later, Judge Stout became the first African American woman to serve on a state supreme court, when she was sworn in as an associate justice in Pennsylvania.

Early Life

Stout was born Juanita Kidd on March 7, 1919, in Wewoka, Oklahoma, the only child of two schoolteachers, Henry and Mary (Chandler) Kidd. From an early age, the value of an education and the importance of achievement were instilled in the little girl. She could read by the time she was three, and when she began school at the age of six, she started school in the third grade. She also began...