Janice McKenzie Cole Receiving Liberty Bell

Article Date: Sunday, February 08, 2009

Written By: Russell Rawlings

Janice McKenzie Cole

Janice McKenzie Cole of Hertford has been selected as the 2009 recipient of the Liberty Bell Award, presented annually by the Young Lawyers Division on behalf of the North Carolina Bar Association to one “who has strengthened the American system of freedom under law.”

To that end, the latest recipient of what is considered one of the highest honors awarded by the NCBA certainly qualifies.

Cole’s expansive resume includes numerous firsts, to which she adds by becoming the first African-American female to receive this honor. The award will be presented on Friday, May 1, in conjunction with the NCBA’s annual Law Day festivities in Raleigh.

In 1990, she became the first woman and the first African American to serve on the District Court bench in North Carolina’s First Judicial District. In 1994, upon confirmation by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of N.C., she became the first black woman to hold that position in North Carolina.

Her remarkable career is a portrait painted against the backdrop of two distinctively different places.

One is her native New York City, where she served as a police officer prior to earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She graduated from the Fordham University School of Law in 1979 and served until 1983 as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of N.Y.

The other is Hertford, where she entered into the private practice of law in 1983 as the only female attorney in the six-county First District.

The common denominator between these two locales, in addition to her devotion to the law, is her husband, District Court Judge James C. Cole. A Perquimans County native, he was serving as a postal inspector in New York City when they married in 1983.

Growing up in Harlem, she told Joseph Neff of The News and Observer when honored as Tar Heel of the Week in 1993, her parents preached hard work and education.

Her mother, Neff reported, served as a stenographer with the New York City Board of Education. Her father worked with the subway system, studying countless hours in the evening for several months to prepare for a promotion test that ultimately led to him becoming the New York Transit Authority’s first African-American supervisor.

Cole, who returned to private practice in 2001, previously served on the Governor’s Crime Commission, the Domestic Violence Commission, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Advisory Panel and the Elizabeth City State University Foundation Board of Directors, the N.C. Child Care Commission and the N.C. Progress Board.

Cole served on the NCBA Board of Governors from 2000-03, and chaired the Government and Public Sector Attorney Committee, forerunner to the Government and Public Sector Section, from 1998-2000.

Previous honors include the Louis J. Lefkowitz Public Service Award from the Fordham University School of Law, the Gwyneth B. Davis Public Service Award from the N.C. Association of Women Attorneys, and the Order of the Long Leaf Pine presented in 2001 by Gov. Mike Easley.

“Janice McKenzie Cole exemplifies an individual who has dedicated her life to public service law on behalf of all citizens of the United States and North Carolina,” said Louise Paglen of Lawyers Mutual, who nominated Cole on behalf of the NCBA Women in the Profession Committee.

“Ms. Cole’s distinguished career is especially noteworthy, because as an African-American female, she has helped pave the way for minorities and women to pass through the doors of opportunity she has repeatedly flung wide open.

“Throughout her career, she never hesitated to lend a helping hand to those who follow in her giant footsteps.”

Cole’s recent selection by the N.C. Democratic Party to serve as member of the U.S. Electoral College is a prime example of her nominator’s last point.

“In recognition of the significant impact younger voters had on the presidential election, Ms. Cole requested that a younger elector, 29-year-old Kara Hollingsworth, join her in formally nominating Obama.”

Upon accepting the award, Janice McKenzie Cole will join a distinguished list of Liberty Bell honorees that also includes Stacy C. Eggers Jr., E. Maurice Braswell, Herbert L. Richardson, William Joslin, Henry Frye, Robert R. Browning, Lacy Thornburg, James B. Hunt Jr., William C. Friday, Sam J. Ervin III, Terry Sanford, Herbert H. Taylor Jr., James Dickson Phillips Jr., Wade E. Brown, Hiram H. Ward, Kathrine Everett, L. Richardson Preyer, J. Frank Huskins, McNeill Smith, Franklin T. Dupree Jr., Thad Eure, Joseph Branch, Dr. Robert E. Lee, William B. Aycock, Susie Sharp and Sam Ervin Jr.