Harry J. Elam became the first Black to serve as a Justice in the more than 300-year history of the Boston Municipal Court when he was appointed in 1971 as an Associate Justice. In 1978 he was the unanimous choice of the full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court to serve a five-year term as Chief Justice of the Boston Municipal Court, again a first for a Black lawyer. In 1979 he founded Project Commitment, in which trial judges bring caring adults into the Boston public schools to provide positive role models for students in an effort to reduce the number of young people that come before the criminal courts. In 1983 Judge Elam was appointed as Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, a position he held until his retirement in 1988.