Judge Mablean reflects on her 20-year career for Women’s History Month

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

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Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

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Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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March 6, 2022

By Maiysha Kai, TheGrio

The Emmy-nominated television show host talks about her career, Tyler Perry, the new Supreme Court nominee and her legacy.

Mablean Ephriam attends the 45th annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on April 29, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo: David Livingston/Getty Images)

In October 1998, Twentieth Century Fox offered the former prosecuting attorney the opportunity to take up the gavel on “Divorce Court,” the first woman and Black person to do so. The role launched her career in entertainment; during her seven-year tenure on the then-newly revised television show, Judge Mablean not only turned that series into a hit, but established her own personal brand. In addition to resonating with viewers as they watched her irresistible personality shine through their television screens, she became equally known for her recurring role as the judge in several of Tyler Perry’s Madea comedies.

Now, with over 20 years of legal wisdom and a nationally recognized brand, Judge Mablean has returned to television on “Justice with Judge Mablean,” produced by Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios, where she is beating out long-established shows in her time slot (Allen also owns theGrio). The Emmy-nominated television show host talked with theGrio about her career, the latest Supreme Court nomination, and her legacy.

Every day when I wake up, I say, ‘Lord, give me the opportunity to be a blessing to someone.’ I want my legacy to be that I was a giver, that I cared about my fellow man and I care for others. I want my legacy to be that I cared about humanity, and I contributed to making humanity and the people that make up the human race better.

Read the full story here.

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