Jeanne Hopkins Lucas (December 25, 1935 - March 9, 2007) was the first African-American woman elected to serve in North Carolina's state Senate.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Languages at North Carolina Central University, where she was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
In 1993, Lucas was appointed to the state's twentieth Senatorial district to complete the term of former Senator Ralph Hunt, and was subsequently re-elected six times.
[2] She was a member and Trustee of Mount Gilead Baptist Church, and was active in a variety of other civic groups in Durham including the local branch of the NAACP.
[3] In 2003, she was diagnosed with a breast cancer tumor and underwent vigorous treatment to remove it.