After a 37-year career on the bench of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson, 70, the first African American woman to preside over civil trials in Philadelphia, announced her retirement. While her decisions and achievements were often covered in the local press, she is likely to be most remembered not for what she did, but for what she was unable to do.

She was not able to be confirmed by the United States Senate in 1997 after President Bill Clinton nominated her to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She withdrew her name after a vicious and lengthy confirmation process that her proponents claimed were fueled by racist attacks from right-wing Senators and commentators.

At first, no one disputed Massiah-Jackson’s qualifications for the Federal bench. She graduated from Philadelphia Girls High School at 16, attended Chestnut Hill College, and graduated from University of Pennsylvania Law School at 23. She clerked at the Pennsylvania Supreme court, then spent seven years doing corporate and civil litigation with the law firm of Blank Rome, before being elected to a judgeship on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas at age 33. She also taught Legal Studies and Business Law at the Wharton School. Her appointment to the Federal Bench was seen as the next step in a distinguished career.

After Clinton’s nomination, she was initially approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. She had the support of Pennsylvania’s two Republican Senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum. But through attacks that eerily foreshadowed the hateful rhetoric against today’s Black Lives Matter movement, her appointment was soon reconsidered.

A conservative Democratic District Attorney called her “anti-police and anti-prosecutor,” and other conservative Pennsylvania politicians followed suit. She was charged with being biased against whites, lacking appropriate judicial temperament and giving extraordinarily lenient sentences. Her use of profanity from the bench was also called out by right-wing columnists such as Ann Coulter. The National Vanguard wrote about her appointment, saying this, “so-called “diversity” has become a new government-enforced religion: a religion in which Massiah-Jackson’s being a Black female excuses the sort of African tribal “justice” she has been dispensing in Philadelphia and qualifies her for the Federal judiciary.”

As tensions rose, a second hearing was held during which Massiah-Jackson tried to answer critics, while abiding by ethics rules. This time, she was accused of naming and outing two undercover police officers, even though one had testified. When it became apparent that she would not be confirmed, she withdrew her nomination.

Since 1997, Massiah-Jackson has presided over a variety of cases including medical malpractice, products liability, complex commercial litigation and personal injury matters. She was the first African American civil court judge and the first African American president judge in any Pennsylvania county. In that capacity, she supervised a $110 million budget, 2,500 employees and 130 judges. Her achievements included increasing the pay for court-appointed attorneys, creating representation for death penalty cases, expanding Judicial Education initiatives, and creating programs to increase court fairness for race and gender.

She has won many awards and accolades, including The Legal Intelligencer Lifetime Achievement Award,

being included in Philadelphia's Mural Arts’ painting entitled "The Faces That Shape Us,” winning an NAACP's Cecil B. Moore Award, and being chosen by the Pennsylvania Commission for Women as one of 50 women of color role models profiled in the book Voices. She sits on the boards of Center for Literacy and Eagleville Hospital and is a member of the Forum of Executive Women.

Halfway through her judicial career, she told WHYY in Philadelphia, “Life changes in ways that we can never anticipate. I believe that the process will bring a just resolution."