A law degree after a tuition detourSourced
She could not pay for her final semester. She later earned an unprecedented law degree.
Unable to afford her last semester at Howard, Mabel Dole Haden transferred to Virginia State College and completed an education degree. She returned to Howard for a law degree in 1948, then became the first Black woman to earn a Master of Laws at Georgetown in 1956.
A detour through education led to a legal first.
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Mabel Dole Haden · Wikimedia contributors
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Reviewed: 2026-10-01