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This photo shows Lillian Burke in the middle, flanked by two unidentified people. Lillian W. Burke (1917-2012) was Ohio’s first African-American female judge. Her appointment to the Cleveland Municipal Court took place in 1969. Later that year, she was elected to the post. The Georgia native earned an undergraduate degree from Ohio State University. She taught in the Cleveland Public Schools while attending the Cleveland Marshall College of Law. After her 1951 graduation from law school, she served as assistant attorney general for three years. In the early 1980s, she was the chief court administrator of the Cleveland Municipal Court, making her the first woman ever elected to serve as an Administrative Judge of a Municipal Court in Ohio. She retired as a judge in 1987. In 2002, the Women's City Club of Cleveland honored Lillian Burke as one of the "Jewels of Cleveland."
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