Walter Farmer was the first African-American to serve in a judicial capacity in Missouri when he was appointed special judge in the St. Louis municipal court at the beginning of the 20th century.
Dorothy L. Freeman in 1942 became the first African-American woman to graduate from Lincoln University School of Law, created in St. Louis as a separate but equal law school for black students because all other state law schools were open only to white students.
McMillian was the first black state court judge (serving in St. Louis city), and, in October 1972, became the first black judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals.
Clyde S. Cahill Jr. graduated from Saint Louis University School of Law in 1951 and served from 1958 to 1965 as the Missouri NAACP’s chief legal advisor, filed the first lawsuit in Missouri to implement the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Cahill was appointed in 1975 as circuit judge for St. Louis city and, in 1980, became the first black federal trial judge in St. Louis when confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
