George Lewis Ruffin
George Lewis Ruffin was born in Richmond, Virginia. He moved with his family to Boston in 1853 to protest Virginia’s ban on African Americans learning to read. After finishing school, Mr. Ruffin worked in a barbershop while he studied law. He graduated from Harvard Law School with the distinction of being the first black graduate of a law school in the United States. He was one of the first African Americans to be admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and he became the first African- American judge in Massachusetts. Mr. Ruffin was elected to the House of Representatives and served on the Common Council.
In addition to his successful legal career, Mr. Ruffin and his wife, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, were active in the fight against slavery and the struggle for justice.
Ruffin was a delegate to the Massachusetts Republican convention in 1871. There, he made a memorable nomination speech for gubernatorial candidate and former Union General Benjamin F. Butler. Butler lost his bid for governor that year but was elected to the statehouse in 1882. The next year, Butler appointed Ruffin the first black judge in Massachusetts, in the Charlestown municipal court. It would be seventy-five years before another African American became a judge in Massachusetts. The same year Ruffin was appointed judge, he was named to the position of consul resident in Boston for the Dominican Republic.
By most accounts, Ruffin donated so much of his income to social causes and charities that he died poor. He died November 20, 1886, of Bright’s disease after several weeks of illness. Ruffin’s legacy was honored in 1984, the year the Justice George Lewis Ruffin Society was founded. The group studies and promotes the advancement of minorities in criminal justice professions and within the Massachusetts criminal justice system. The society is affiliated with the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Massachusetts and works with the college in planning its criminal justice classes and programs. The society also holds an annual criminal justice meeting and maintains the Ruffin Fellows program, which sponsors outstanding minority students pursuing a graduate degree from Northeastern’s criminal justice program..
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