Harold A. Stevens

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Harold Arnoldus Stevens (Johns Island, South Carolina, October 19, 1907–November 9, 1990) was an African American jurist. He was born to William F. and Lilla L. Johnson Stevens. His father died when he was three years old and Harold left Johns Island, and moved to Columbia with his mother and maternal grandparents, the Reverend and Mrs. C.H. Johnson. Later his mother remarried. Harold attended Claflin College High School and earned a Bachelor's Degree from Benedict College in 1930. He headed to Boston, after he was rejected from the then-segregated University of South Carolina Law School. In 1936 he was the first black American to get an LL.B. degree in labor law from Boston College.

In the 1940's he was a counsel to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Provisional Committee to Organize Colored Locomotive Firemen. He is a veteran of World War II. Harold Stevens has received numerous awards and honorary degrees of national and international dimension. He became one of this nation's most outstanding jurists. From 1947 to 1950 he was a member of the New York Assembly.

In 1950, he was elected to the New York Court of General Sessions. In 1955, Governor W. Averill Harriman appointed him to fill a vacancy as a justice on the New York State Supreme Court, which is a general jurisdiction trial court. That November, he was elected to that seat for a 14 year term. In 1958, he was appointed an Associate Justice to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, 1st Department. He was named its presiding justice in 1969.

In 1974, Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller appointed him to New York State Court of Appeals, the state's court of last resort, as an interim appointment. This gave him the highest rank of any black American in a state judicial system; he was the first African-American to hold a seat on the Court of Appeals. The next year, he was redesignated the presiding justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, where he served until retirement in 1977.

Judge Stevens served as a trustee or board member for many organizations, including St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York Medical College, New York University Law Center Foundation, the Council for Religious and International Affairs, and the National Center for State Courts. He served as a Special Council of Religious and International Affairs, and the National Center for State Courts. He served as a Special Counsel to President Roosevelt's Commission on Fair Employment Practices.