1st Black woman serving in North Carolina legislature dies

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Annie Brown Kennedy, an lawyer who was the primary Black girl to serve within the North Carolina Common Meeting, has died at age 98, a member of the family mentioned.

Kennedy, a Democrat who first joined the Home in 1979 to fill a emptiness, died Tuesday from pure causes at her house in Winston-Salem, based on Harvey Kennedy, certainly one of her sons. A plaque contained in the Legislative Constructing in Raleigh acknowledges her pioneering achievement.

“She was an exquisite mom,” Kennedy informed the Winston-Salem Journal. “She was a trailblazer.”

Kennedy ran unsuccessfully to maintain her Home seat in 1980, however was elected to return to Raleigh two years later, the newspaper reported. She served within the chamber for one more decade. Her son mentioned she labored for passage of paid household depart and efficiently prevented the Winston-Salem State College nursing program from being shuttered by different lawmakers.

An Atlanta native, Annie Kennedy graduated from Spelman School and the Howard College legislation faculty, based on a written biography.

Her son mentioned she was additionally among the many first African American feminine attorneys in North Carolina and first girls to observe legislation in Forsyth County. She and her husband, Harold Kennedy Jr., created a legislation partnership that included two of their three sons and targeted on household legislation and civil litigation, the newspaper reported.

Former Gov. Jim Hunt, who formally appointed Kennedy to the legislative seat in 1979, mentioned she “was an actual scrapper when it got here to getting alternatives for folks … she made no bones about that. I used to be actual proud to have a chance to nominate her.”

U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., mentioned Kennedy was a mentor to her when she joined the state Home within the Nineteen Nineties.

“She helped information me, and I admired her as a result of she was a superb girl, a superb lawyer and the consummate stateswoman,” Adams mentioned. “She was all the time real, sort and supportive. She wasn’t loud in her talking, however all the time spoke with energy.”