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Lila Fenwick, First Black Woman to Graduate Harvard Law in ’56, Dies of COVID-19

HeadlineApr 17, 2020

Lila Fenwick, who in 1956 became the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Law School, has died from COVID-19. She became a student at Harvard in 1954, following the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, joining the cohort as part of only a handful of women and the only black woman. Fenwick was 87 years old. Renowned Chilean author Luis Sepúlveda, who in the 1980s fled the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, has died from COVID-19. Sepúlveda is celebrated for his literary work depicting life in South America. He was 70 years old.

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