Delta Sigma Theta’s Gertrude Rush Was a Co-Founder of the National Bar Association and Iowa’s First Black Woman Lawyer

Did you know that one of the pioneering figures in American law was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.? Her name was Gertrude Elzora Durden Rush, and long before the legal profession opened its doors to Black women, she pried them open herself.

Born on August 5, 1880, in Navasota, Texas, Gertrude Durden came from a family that joined the Exoduster movement of Black Southerners who resettled in the Midwest. She taught school for nearly a decade before marrying Des Moines attorney James B. Rush in 1907 and beginning to study law in his office. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Des Moines College in 1914 and completed her legal training by correspondence through La Salle Extension University.

In 1918, Rush was admitted to the Iowa bar, becoming the first African American woman to practice law in the state. After her husband’s death, she took over his Des Moines practice, and she would remain the only Black woman lawyer in Iowa until the 1950s. In 1921, she was elected president of the Colored Bar Association, making her the first woman to lead a state bar association that included both men and women.

Her most enduring mark came in 1925. After she and other Black attorneys were denied membership in the American Bar Association because of their race, Rush joined four colleagues to found the organization that became the National Bar Association, today the oldest and largest association of Black attorneys and judges in the country.

Rush’s connection to Delta Sigma Theta traces back to the sorority’s early years in Iowa. She was made an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta at the establishment of the sorority’s Delta Chapter at the State University of Iowa on April 4, 1919. Founded in 1913 at Howard University on the principles of scholarship, service, and social action, the sorority found a natural kinship with a woman who devoted her life to justice.

Beyond the courtroom, Rush was a playwright, composer, and civic leader who wrote hymns and organized charitable institutions for Black women and girls. She was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994, and the National Bar Association continues to present the Gertrude Rush Award in her honor.