Sylvia X. Allen Portrait Unveiling Illuminates Legacy of Cumberland County Bar

On Friday, November 4, the UNC School of Law unveiled a portrait honoring its first Black female graduate, the late Sylvia X. Allen of Fayetteville. Commissioning of the portrait coincides with the establishment of an endowed scholarship honoring Allen, who was a member of the Class of 1962.

Dean Martin Brinkley, a past president of the North Carolina Bar Association, presided over the ceremony, which included remarks by UNC Board of Trustees Chair Dave Boliek of Fayetteville, law alumni M. Scott Peeler and Diana Florence of New York, whose lead gift launched the scholarship fund, Cumberland County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge James F. Ammons, a lifelong friend of the Allen family, and two of Allen’s eight children, attorneys S. Kathryn Allen and Elizabeth Allen of Washington, D.C.

Dave Boliek, a white man with grey hair, stands at the podium to the left of the veiled portrait.

NCBA member and UNC Board Chair Dave Boliek addresses audience at portrait unveiling.

Sylvia X. Allen, as denoted in coverage accessible here on the UNC School of Law website, “was a public servant, civil rights activist and a woman of many firsts. She was the first Black female to graduate from Carolina Law, one of the first three Black female lawyers admitted to the bar in North Carolina and the first Black female assistant district attorney in the state.”

Allen’s legacy as a prosecutor and member of the Cumberland County Bar resonated with Boliek, an NCBA member and former Cumberland County assistant district attorney who practices with Williford, Boliek and Frangakis, LLP in Fayetteville.

“Like Judge Ammons, I started as a prosecutor in the Cumberland County DA’s office, and followed in the footsteps of Sylvia and others who were assistant DAs there,” Boliek said. “I think it really is true in Cumberland County that there is a camaraderie between attorneys who served as prosecutors that really never goes away.

“For me, it’s really humbling and certainly an honor to be serving as chair of the board at Chapel Hill, and also be a member of the Cumberland County Bar, to have this event and this scholarship and this portrait unveiled. It’s a really neat thing for me personally.

Judge Ammons and artist Robin Wellner stand on either side of the portrait of Sylvia, in which Sylvia, the subject, wears a blue dress and sits in a red chair.

Judge James F. Ammons and artist Robin Wellner unveil portrait of Sylvia X Allen.

It is a legacy, Boliek added, that permeates both the district attorney’s office and the local bar in Cumberland County, and includes three recent recipients of the NCBA’s Liberty Bell Award:

  • Patricia Timmons-Goodson, a former assistant district attorney who served as a Cumberland County District Court judge, N.C. Court of Appeals judge, and in 2006 became the first Black woman to serve on the N.C. Supreme Court;
  • A. Elizabeth Keever, a former assistant district attorney who served 32 years as a Cumberland County District Court judge including service as chief judge from 1994 until her retirement at the end of 2014; and
  • Cheri Beasley, a former assistant public defender in Cumberland County who served as a District Court judge, N.C. Court of Appeals judge, associate justice on the N.C. Supreme Court, and in 2019 became the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court.

The Hons. Timmons-Goodson and Beasley have also been honored in recent years by the NCBA Minorities in the Profession Committee as recipients of the Legal Legends of Color Award.

“This sets such an example for students at Chapel Hill and gives all students a visible representation that as a Black woman, you belong,” Boliek concluded. “It says that you belong at this place … and you should not consider yourself in any way, shape or form an outsider because people like Sylvia Allen trailblazed for you and set an example. That’s what I think this portrait represents.

“She was a groundbreaker and a trailblazer.”

Keever, who continues to serve as an emergency judge, concurs. When she came to Cumberland County in 1975, there were three female attorneys practicing law in the county and Sylvia X. Allen was one of them.

“One was Elizabeth Fox, who had been here 20 years, and Mary Ann Talley had come the year before to the public defender’s office,” Keever said. “And it was the presence of Sylvia Allen and Elizabeth Fox, and their relationship with the bar, that really eased my way into the bar.

“They had created the atmosphere that it was OK for women to be lawyers, and the bar was very accepting of women coming into the bar here in Cumberland County.”

Being a part of that legacy, Keever added, made it especially meaningful to attend the portrait unveiling.

“It did, it really did,” Keever said. “It’s just fantastic to have a Cumberland County Bar member enshrined at the law school. And I love the portrait. It was a great ceremony and a marvelous portrait.”

Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.