Meet the Honorable Bernice Bouie Donald: A Trailblazer of Justice and Service

Growing up in DeSoto County, Mississippi, Judge Bernice Bouie Donald was one of ten children. She attended segregated schools until her senior year in 1967, when she became one of the first students to integrate Olive Branch High School. “Those years were not easy — opportunities for mentorship and scholarship information were withheld from me,” she recalled. “Despite the obstacles, I applied to and was accepted by the university then known as Memphis State.”

That opportunity, she says, changed her life. “My experience at the University of Memphis transported me beyond my circumstances and introduced me to a world I didn’t know existed. That education became the launching point of my career in law and service to my community.”

Donald earned her sociology degree in 1974, her Juris Doctor from the UofM School of Law in 1979, and soon began work with Memphis Area Legal Services and the Public Defender’s Office. From there, she broke barrier after barrier. In 1982, she became the first Black woman elected to Tennessee’s General Sessions Criminal Court. Just six years later, she made history again as the first Black woman in the nation to serve as a federal bankruptcy judge. Appointments from Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama followed, elevating her to the U.S. District Court and then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

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