Willie Stevenson Glanton was dedicated to the law, human services, and civil rights. Educated in Tennessee and in Washington, D.C., she was admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1953. In the 1960s, the U.S. State Department sent her to Africa and Southeast Asia to compare laws and their application to women in these countries. In the U.S., Glanton was the first woman Assistant Polk County Attorney and she was the first African-American female to be elected to the Iowa State Legislature. Glanton held leadership positions on numerous boards, commissions and councils, and in church, civic, and community organizations. A member of Who's Who in America, she was the first woman and first African American to be elected president of the Iowa Chapter Federal Bar Association and represented that association in a people-to-people tour of China, Finland, and the Soviet Union in 1986. Glanton was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1986.

Learn more: https://humanrights.iowa.gov/willie-stevenson-glanton

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