Marian Fleming Poe
*Marian Fleming Poe was born on this date in 1890. She was a Black lawyer and women's advocate.
Lavinia Marian Fleming was born in Warwick County, Virginia, to Archer R. Fleming, a blacksmith and formerly enslaved person, and Florence M. Carter. She grew up in Newport News, Virginia. In 1910 she married Abram James Poe and had two children when she decided to become a lawyer.
Poe moved her family to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a bank teller and enrolled in Howard University Law School. She passed the Virginia bar in 1925, becoming the first African American woman to do so. She returned to Newport News, where she began to practice. In 1927 she gained the necessary credentials to argue in front of the Supreme Court of Appeals in Virginia. Her practice continued through the 1960s.
Poe was a member of the National Association of Women Lawyers and served as secretary to the Old Dominion Bar Association for 13 years. Marian Fleming Poe died on March 20, 1974. In 2018 the Virginia Capitol Foundation announced that Poe's name would be included on the Virginia Women's Monument's glass Wall of Honor. 08
