Kappa Alpha Psi’s Irvin Mollison Broke the Color Barrier on the Federal Bench in the Continental United States

Did you know that the first African American to serve as a federal judge in the continental United States was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.? His name was Irvin C. Mollison, and he broke one of the most significant barriers in the American justice system.

Irvin Charles Mollison was born on December 24, 1898, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago in 1920 and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1923. It was there that he joined Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. through the fraternity’s Iota Chapter. As the University of Chicago Library notes, the Iota Chapter was established at the University of Chicago in 1918, during Mollison’s years on campus.

Mollison built a distinguished legal career in Chicago, practicing law in Illinois for more than two decades and becoming active in the fight for civil rights. He earned a reputation as one of the finest Black attorneys in the country. He was part of the legal team in the landmark case Hansberry v. Lee, which challenged the racially restrictive covenants used to bar Black families from white neighborhoods. As the University of Chicago Law School documents, Mollison was one of the attorneys who represented Carl Hansberry, a Black businessman and the father of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, alongside Earl B. Dickerson, Truman K. Gibson Jr., C. Francis Stradford and Loring B. Moore. In 1940, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Hansberry’s favor, a decision that helped open Chicago neighborhoods to Black residents and laid groundwork for the eventual end of court-enforced housing covenants.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman nominated Mollison to serve as a judge of the United States Customs Court. As the Library of Congress documented at the time, the Senate confirmed him without a single dissenting vote, and he became the first African American appointed to a federal judgeship within the continental United States. In doing so, he followed Omega Psi Phi’s William Henry Hastie, whom President Franklin D. Roosevelt had appointed to the U.S. District Court of the Virgin Islands in 1937, making Hastie the first African American federal judge in U.S. history. According to the Federal Judicial Center, Truman nominated Mollison in October 1945, and he served on the court until his death.

Mollison remained on the U.S. Customs Court for the rest of his life, a trailblazer and a symbol of what was possible for Black Americans in the law. He died on May 5, 1962.

From the University of Chicago to the federal bench, Kappa Alpha Psi’s Irvin Mollison opened a door in the American judiciary that had never been opened before him.