Thomas Lawson

Professional career

• Judge Lawson E. Thomas (1898–1989) was the first African American judge appointed in the American South since Reconstruction, and a pioneering civil rights attorney in Miami-Dade County
• In 1950, Thomas was appointed by the City of Miami Commission as judge of the newly created Negro Municipal Court — the first Black judge in the South since Reconstruction
• He broke barriers by becoming the first Black lawyer to present a case in person in Miami’s municipal court in 1937, defying a bailiff’s threat to throw him from a sixth-floor window
• Remembered as a trailblazer, civil rights leader, and a judge who used the law as both “shield and sword” to advance equality
• His tenure was marked by fairness, strictness, and a focus on justice for the Black community, with notable reductions in juvenile delinquency and crime in the area

Education

Additional information

• In 2000, the Lawson E. Thomas Courthouse Center in Downtown Miami was named in his honor.
• Judge Thomas died on September 14, 1989, at age 91.
• Thomas began practicing law in Jacksonville in 1934 and moved to Miami in 1935.
• He was admitted to the Michigan Bar in 1926 and practiced in Detroit before returning to Florida in 1928
• Studies at the then–Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Florida A&M University) in 1919, and in 1923 earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, becoming the only African American graduate that year.
• Lawson Edward Thomas was born January 28, 1898 in Ocala, Florida, the first of seven sons to parents who had migrated from South Carolina.
• He often worked with the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall in the fight against segregation