Do you know the name of the first African-American man to practice before the Michigan Supreme Court? It’s D. Augustus Straker.

What about the name of the first woman to practice before the Court? That’s Martha H. Strickland.

How about the first African-American woman to practice before the Court? No?

Neither do I.

But I can make a couple educated guesses.

Michigan’s first African-American woman lawyer was Grace C. Murphy.¹ She was most likely born in the late 1880s, although her death certificate lists her birthdate as Aug. 11, 1892.² Thanks to marriage records, we know that Grace G. Wilson, the daughter of Albert and Harriet (Hannah) Wilson of Virginia, married Henry Murphy in 1914 in Detroit.³ And based on her death certificate, we know that Grace moved to Detroit in 1910 and most likely didn’t speak much about her family because her husband — who was the informant on the certificate — listed her parents as “unknown.”⁴

In the 1920s, Murphy — who had already attended Norfolk Mission College — decided to enroll in the Detroit College of Law. This was a revolutionary decision, as there was no guarantee she could make a living at it. Surely, Murphy had heard of Charlotte Ray, the first African-American woman to practice law in the United States; while Ray was admitted to the bar and had argued “a case before the District of Columbia Supreme Court,” she couldn’t support herself “due to prejudice against both women and African Americans” and had to abandon the law.⁵ Murphy may have also known about the Roxboroughs, a family of lawyers — Charles Sr. was “one of Detroit’s first” African-American attorneys,⁶ Charles Jr. graduated from Detroit College of Law in 1914, and Charles Jr.’s wife attended law school — who were a bit more successful. Whatever her reason for her decision, Murphy followed through on her plan and graduated in 1923, practicing law in Michigan until her death in 1932.⁷

That’s a career of less than 10 years, but she just might be the first African-American woman to practice before the Michigan Supreme Court. There’s one case — Sidney H. Jones v. Adolph T. Marschner, Wayne Circuit Judge (236 Mich. 313) — where a “Grayce G.W. Murphy” is listed as of counsel with African-American lawyer Benjamin F. Dunning.

The spelling of the names is different, obviously, but it doesn’t take much of a leap to make the connection. How many female attorneys in Detroit at the time were named Grace?

Unfortunately, the Court calendar book listing all the events involved in the case doesn’t include Murphy as one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, so perhaps she wasn’t there at all but assisted offsite. Wouldn’t it be perfect, though, if the first African-American woman to practice before the Michigan Supreme Court also happened to be the first female African-American attorney in the state? Rarely does history tie up so neatly.

Of course, the answer to our question might be Luvenia D. Dockett.

We know a little bit more about Dockett than we do about Murphy ... but not much.

Luvenia Dockett is a mystery in many ways. We know when she was born, but not when she died. We know where she was born, but not why she came to Michigan. We know she was well-educated, but not the reason why. Most frustratingly, we don’t even know the correct spelling of her name. In some records, it’s “Luvenia.” In others, it’s “Louvenia” or “Louvina.” Can you imagine the confusion when no one can consistently spell your first name?

Another source of frustration in researching Dockett’s past is that her last name changed constantly. She married Robert Wynn in 1928; they divorced in 1939. She married Herbert Dockett in 1942; he died in 1963. Then in the 1970s, she married someone with the last name of Johnson. So you have to search for Luvenia Dorsey, Luvenia D. Wynn, Luvenia D. Dockett, and Luvenia Dockett-Johnson plus all the variations of her first name.

However her name was spelled or misspelled, Dockett was incredibly smart. By age 31, she had already graduated from Clark College and the Atlanta University School of Social Work.⁸ Her thesis focused on providing public welfare to families in Fulton County, Georgia, which is where Atlanta is located. With all those degrees, a law degree must have seemed like the next logical step.

Dockett graduated from the Detroit College of Law in 1950,⁹ passed the bar exam the following April,¹⁰ and was admitted to the Bar two months later. She was joined in the legal community by Geraldine Bledsoe Ford less than a year later, and their careers would run parallel at times. In fact, Dockett ran against Ford in the 1966 race for a seat on the Detroit Recorder’s Court, the election that earned Ford her designation as the first African-American woman elected as a judge.¹¹ Ford was considered “preferred and well qualified” and Dockett “qualified”¹² for the post, and though Dockett was defeated in the primary, she did receive more than 11,200 votes.¹³

By that time, Dockett was already serving “as an assistant Wayne County [p]rosecutor, which would cause her presence before the Court regularly.”¹⁴ But less than year after she was admitted to the Bar, Dockett is listed as counsel for Iva Isabell in the case of George A. Isabell v. Iva S. Isabell (333 Mich. 519), which might make her the first to argue before the Michigan Supreme Court. Of course, just to make things difficult, there are no records that Isabell v. Isabell was actually argued before the Court. It might have been decided by the submitted briefs. Does that count?

There is one other possibility, however. In October 1961, Jesse Pharr Slaton argued in front of the Michigan Supreme Court in Lorena Fields and Ernest Fields v. Monte Korn and Eleanor Korn (366 Mich. 108). I know Slaton well; she was an incredibly intelligent, ground-breaking, involved-in-everything lady who I’ve already written about. You can read more about her in a Michigan Lawyers in History article published in the August 2020 issue of the Michigan Bar Journal. It would be extremely ironic if, after all this searching for the first African-American woman to argue in front of the Michigan Supreme Court, she was sitting right under my nose, someone I already knew.

The first African-American man to argue a case before the Court was a bit lucky that his case — William W. Ferguson v. Edward G. Gies — was one of great importance. Most everyone knows Michigan’s “first case of racial discrimination”¹⁵ and many know the names of those involved: D. Augustus Straker, the attorney, and William Ferguson, who would become Michigan’s first African-American state representative. The three cases Murphy, Dockett, and Slaton are connected to — Jones v. Marschner, Isabell v. Isabell, and Fields v. Korn — were ordinary, everyday cases: a money judgment, a messy divorce, a real estate issue. They were nothing that would really capture anyone’s fancy.

Back to the original question: Who was the first African American woman to argue before the Michigan Supreme Court? Perhaps Murphy was the first to have her name connected to a case, Dockett was the first to bring a case up to the Court under her own name, and Slaton was the first to argue a case. If you know anything different, let me know.

The author thanks Hon. Terrance Keith for his assistance with research and review.