Trailblazing jurist Shirley Fulton dies at age 71

Shirley Fulton of Charlotte, the first Black woman Superior Court judge in North Carolina, died Wednesday at age 71.

Shirley Fulton, the first Black woman prosecutor in Mecklenburg County and the first to serve on North Carolina’s Superior Court, died Wednesday from gall bladder cancer complications.

She was 71.

Ms. Fulton, born Jan. 2, 1952, was raised in Kingstree, S.C., where she and four siblings picked cotton on the family farm. She balanced academics and motherhood to earn her undergraduate degree at North Carolina A&T State University in 1977 and law degree from Duke Law School in 1980 before going to work for the Guilford County register of deeds office.

“I had a contact with lawyers and my job was a dead end job,” she told The Post in a 1997 article. “I thought being a lawyer would be interesting and something I would like to do.”

In 1982, Ms. Fulton was appointed assistant district attorney in Mecklenburg County – the first Black woman to do so and appointed a District Court judge. She was elected to the Superior Court bench in 1988. She was appointed chief judge in 1997.

“It made me feel shame for society that we had come that far, and we were just getting Black females in the role,” she said in a profile for Charlotte Women’s Movement’s website.

“Our community has lost a giant with the passing of former Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Shirley L. Fulton,” Mecklenburg’s District Attorney’s Office posted after her passing was announced. “Blazing a historic path in the profession, Judge Fulton was the first Black woman to serve as an Assistant District Attorney in Mecklenburg County, building a record of great accomplishment as a trial prosecutor, before going on to a storied career on the bench. Judge Fulton always emphasized an unyielding commitment to justice, equity, and fairness throughout her career. She earned the honor and respect of her colleagues, and she served as an aspirational role model and mentor for generations of young people, including for DA Spencer Merriweather, who first had the honor of meeting her two decades ago when he interned in the District Attorney's Office.”

Ms. Fulton retired from the bench to become a founding partner at Tin Fulton Walker & Owen law firm.

In addition to her law career, Ms. Fulton, a breast cancer survivor, was a champion of neighborhood development and improvement. She converted a Wesley Heights duplex into her single-family home, co-organized the Queen City Congress, a group of inner city neighborhoods from Washington Heights to Dilworth, and restored the historic Wadsworth House into a conference and event center in Wesley Heights. She served on nonprofit boards, including commissioner at Inlivian, Charlotte’s housing authority, led the Mecklenburg Bar Association, and earned a master’s in business administration at Queens University of Charlotte.

In 2010, she was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine for her service to North Carolina.

“I guess a lot of things fell into place for me,” she once said, “but sometimes I had to push them into place.”

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