Osupa 26 February 2010 Education, Higher Learning, Lifestyle No Comment

Birth Year : 1913
Jean Murrell Capers was born in Georgetown, KY. Her family moved to Cleveland, OH, when she was a child. Capers was a teacher in the Cleveland schools before becoming an attorney in 1945. She was assistant police prosecutor from 1946 until 1949, when she became the first African American elected to the Cleveland City Council.

(CLEVELAND CALL & POST 1949)

The N.C.N.W. recognized her as one of the 10 outstanding women in public service in 1950. She was the director and organizer of the Central Welfare Association. Capers later became a Cleveland Municipal Court Judge.

Capers was one of the original members of the Women’s Advisory Council of the Women’s Division at the former Ohio Bureau of Employment Services, now the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Governor James A. Rhodes appointed Capers to fill an unexpired term as Cleveland Municipal Judge in 1977. Later that year, she won election to that post, and in 1979, won re-election to a full six-year term. Capers is a trailblazer and a tireless supporter of causes to uplift the poor.

In 2006, Capers, at 93 years of age, was the oldest practicing member of the National Bar Association. Capers is a graduate of the Cleveland Law School [which merged with the John Marshall School of Law in 1945 to become the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law].

For more see Who’s Who in Colored America, 1950; The American Bench. Judges of the nation, 2nd edition, ed. by M. Reincke and N. Lichterman; and “Capers oldest member to attend annual convention,” National Bar Association Law E-Bulletin, vol. 14, issue 1 (August 2006). Photos of Jean Capers are in the African Americans of Note in Cleveland database.