Judge Sara J. Harper passed away on July 8, 2025, days short of her 99th birthday. Out of the limelight for the last decade, as her health declined, Judge Harper was a trailblazer for women and particularly women of color. Her legacy should not be forgotten.
When Sara Juanita Harper was born in 1926, Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States. Along with Carl and Louis Stokes, she grew up in public housing in the Outhwaite neighborhood of Cleveland. She attended Cleveland public schools, as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal attempted to bring the nation out of the Great Depression and Black Americans struggled for their rightful place in America.
She was 15 years old when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. By the end of World War II, she had graduated from high school. When she graduated from college in 1948, Harry Truman was president. America had entered the nuclear age, but America was still a largely segregated society…