Regalena melrose biography of alberta jones

Alberta Odell Jones was the type of person who truly deserves to be described as impressive and exceptional. She lived a life of firsts, breaking barriers of both race and gender and paving the way for others to follow in her footsteps. She put her undergraduate degree to work taking a job as an accountant for a local insurance firm and began saving money to pay for law school.

Alberta attended the University of Louisville School of Law for one year before receiving a scholarship to study law at Howard University in Washington D. When she arrived to take the test she was informed by the secretary of the State Board of Bar Examiners that she would be the first Black female attorney in Kentucky if she passed.

In Alberta was approached by a fellow graduate of Central High School who wanted her assistance. This was the up-and-coming young boxer then known as Cassius Clay, who sought her representation in negotiating his first contract. Alberta traveled with Clay to California where she brilliantly negotiated his first professional contract which contained a provision far ahead of its time that would require a portion of his earnings to be set aside and held in trust with her as co-trustee.

Regalena “Reggie” Melrose, PhD. Assessing

Without her approval he would not be able to access these funds until age In addition to this high profile achievement, Alberta made great contributions to the fight for civil rights in Louisville. Kennedy had campaigned for the Black vote, the national Democratic party did not have a unified commitment to civil rights, and the same was true at the local level in Louisville.

Louisville had never seen the kind of overt and pervasive racial violence that was so common across the deeper south. In the years since Reconstruction city leaders had allowed for small, calculated concessions to demands from the Black community, giving just enough to keep them pacified without doing much- if anything- to disrupt the lives of white residents.

Louisville had been a staunchly Democratic city since the formation of the party in the s, with Republicans winning only a handful of municipal elections over the next century. The local Republican Party saw this as an opportunity to gain power for the first time in almost thirty years, and their candidates ran on a platform centered on desegregating downtown businesses with candidates for Aldermen pledging to pass such an ordinance and mayoral candidate William Cowger promising to sign it into law.

The Independent Voters Association recognized the power Black voters had to leverage their votes as a cohesive block in order to force change. Black voters allegiance to the Party of Lincoln had waned as Democratic presidential candidates like Franklin D.