Glendora Putnam

Putnam was born on July 25, 1923 in Lugoff, South Carolina to Simon and Katherine McIlwain.[3] She had one brother, Luther, a Tuskegee Airman and a New York City police officer.[4] Her parents moved north to provide better opportunities for the family, arriving in Massachusetts in the late 1920s.[4] They lived in Methuen[3] and South Lawrence, Massachusetts.[4] Her parents were involved in the civil rights movement.[4]

Putnam originally attend a junior college in the south but, after she was discouraged from applying to law school by faculty,[3] she transferred and earned a bachelor's degree at Bennett College.[4] She then earned a law degree at the Boston University School of Law.[4][3] She was driven to attend law school by a desire to eliminate segregation and discrimination.[4]

Putnam became the first African-American woman to serve as an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts in the office of Edward W. Brooke, her law school classmate.[4][3] In this role, she led the civil rights division.[4] Putnam and Brooke had previously worked on civil rights issues for the NAACP.[3] Putnam held the same position under Brooke's successors, Elliot Richardson and Robert H. Quinn.[5]

Beginning in 1969, Putname chaired that Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, saying it was like being "given a teaspoon to shovel out an ocean."[4] She left the Commission after seven years[3] to become an assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.[4] After returning to Massachusetts, she worked at the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency and then on the advisory board to the Massachusetts Civil Rights Commission.[4]

In the 1980s, she was chairman of the board of the Young Women's Christian Association, an organization that refused her admittance in the segregated south of her youth.[4][3]

For her work in civil rights, she received the YW Boston's Academy of Women Achievers and Sandra B. Henriquez Racial Justice awards.[4] She was also named a Living Legend by the Museum of African American History in 2012, the museums's highest honor.[4][3]

Putnam received honorary doctor of law degrees from Bennett in 1991 and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.[3] The Boston University School of Law awarded her the Silver Shingle Award for outstanding public service and the Massachusetts Black Lawyer's Association presented her with the Distinguished Achievement Award.[3]

Putnam married Harold Putnam, a state representative in the Great and General Court.[4] The couple later divorced.[4] Putnamed died June 5, 2016, after a stroke.[4]

• List of first women lawyers and judges in Massachusetts