Ruth Whitehead Whaley (February 2, 1901 – December 23, 1977) was the third African American woman admitted to practice law in New York in 1925[1] and the first in North Carolina in 1933.
[8] After college, she worked as a teacher at the North Carolina State School for the Deaf in Raleigh.
She also became the first black woman to pass the bar exam in North Carolina, when she returned to Goldsboro in 1933.
[10] Jim Crow laws made it very hard for black lawyers to practice in North Carolina, even up to the mid 1900s, but with the assistance of family friend and attorney Hugh Dortch, she was able to get a license by reciprocity.
[12] Whaley built a private practice in New York, specializing in civil service law, where she represented local black government employees.
She frequently argued in front of the Second Court of Appeals and won landmark cases in the area.
[14] She was the first Black woman candidate chosen to represent the interests of Tammany Hall in the City Council election of 1945.
[17] A longtime resident of Harlem, she retired from the Secretary of the New York City Board of Estimate in 1973.