BWPAC FOUNDERS

The Honorable Barbara H. (Hamlet) Boyd (August 29, 1942 – November 5, 2022) was a lifelong public servant whose career spanned decades of trailblazing service to the Cleveland, Ohio community. In 1983, she became the first Black person and Black woman elected to the Cleveland Heights City Council, where she also served as Vice Mayor and ultimately Mayor in 1992. During that same period, she served as a Community Relations Officer for the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Courts, undertaking countywide outreach activities for one of the oldest courts in the nation. 

Rep. Boyd went on to serve four consecutive terms in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1993 through 2000, representing the 9th District, during which she was most proud of her leadership on welfare reform and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). After reaching term limits, she continued her public service as executive assistant to the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and as regional manager for the Children's Defense Fund in Northeast Ohio, before returning to the Ohio House in 2006 and serving until 2014. 

A founding member of the Black Women's Political Action Committee and a recognized legislative leader, Rep. Boyd left an enduring legacy of advocacy, community investment, and public service that extended well beyond the offices she held.

The Honorable Patricia Ann Blackmon is a trailblazing Cleveland jurist whose career in public service spanned more than four decades. After graduating magna cum laude from Tougaloo College and earning her law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1975, Blackmon was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1976 and went on to serve as Assistant Prosecutor for the City of Cleveland and the city's first night prosecutor, before being appointed Chief Prosecutor; having already litigated over 650 cases by that point in her career.   She also helped organize the first law firm in the state comprised of African American women, Johnson, Keenan, and Blackmon, and served as an assistant director of the Victims/Witness Program and as a professor at Dyke College. 

In 1991, Judge Blackmon became the first African American woman elected as a judge on a court of appeals in Ohio, joining the Eighth District Court of Appeals, the largest and busiest appellate court in the state, where she served five judicial terms before retiring on February 10, 2021. 

Among her many honors, she was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, named 1996 Alumna of the Year from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, and inducted into the Cleveland-Marshall Hall of Fame as a Living Legend in 2017. Following her retirement, she continued to serve as a Jurist-in-Residence at Cleveland-Marshall Law School and as a faculty member at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, where she teaches mindfulness for judges.

The Honorable Sara J. Harper (August 10, 1926 – July 8, 2025) was one of Cleveland's most distinguished and trailblazing jurists, whose career of public service spanned more than seven decades. Born and raised in Outhwaite Estates, a Cleveland public housing complex, Judge Harper went on to become the first African American woman to graduate from Case Western Reserve University's School of Law in 1952. 

Following graduation, she served as an assistant city prosecutor and assistant law director for the City of Cleveland, and her first venture into politics came at age 27 as the Republican Party's endorsed candidate for State Representative.   In 1970, Governor James Rhodes appointed her to a seat on the Cleveland Municipal Court, making her the second Black woman judge in Ohio, a position to which she was elected in 1971 and on which she served with distinction for nearly two decades. Simultaneously, she broke barriers as the first female military judge in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, ultimately retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. 

In 1990, Judge Harper and Judge Patricia Ann Blackmon were elected together to the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals, making them the first two Black women to sit on a Court of Appeals in Ohio. In 1992, she became the first Black woman to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court, sitting by assignment.  Beyond the bench, she served as president of the Cleveland NAACP from 1982 to 1985, and founded the Stay in School Project, which over eight years enrolled over 17,000 students in local schools and distributed $150,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds for academic achievement.  She also founded the Sara J. Harper Children's Library in the Outhwaite neighborhood where she grew up; a legacy that endures today. 

Judge Harper passed away on July 8, 2025, at the age of 98, leaving behind an extraordinary and irreplaceable legacy of firsts, service, and community investment.

Margie Katherine Adams (. - September 24, 2004) served in Cleveland Ward 3 as precinct committee person and ward leader. She also served on the Executive Committee of the Cuyahoga Democratic Party. Katherine served as Assistant Baliff for Judges Walter Whitlach and Kenneth Roco of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court until she retired in 1988. Mrs. Adams was a founding member of the Black Women’s Political Action Committee and over the years was instrumental in supporting the election of many prominent Democratic candidates.