CBA Record

Running from the Police Holmes was born in San Diego, California, and moved to Chicago at a young age. She grew up the oldest of five children in a five- bedroom house in the south side Morgan Park neighborhood. Just at the end of her block was Calumet City, Illinois. When they moved in, her family was the first African American family on the block—a fact that triggered some violent reactions in some of her neighbors. “I can tell you stories,” Judge Holmes says, “[but] I won’t tell you.” Eventually, the neighborhood, as she describes it “turned over,” and filled with children playing softball in the street. “Our big kick,” Holmes says, “was at 10 o’clock at night, we would go to the end of the block and cross the street because the curfew in Calumet City was 10 o’clock, but the curfew in Chicago was 10:30. So we would cross the street, and the Calumet City police would come and turn on the lights and we’d run back across the street. And we literally would do that, you know, for a half an hour.” She later learned that the officer who chased her and her siblings across the street was the husband of Holmes’ sixth grade teacher. “He was having just as much fun as we were.” Even so, when her mother found out about Holmes’ nightly shenanigans, the game quickly ended. Holmes describes her mother as an activist and a rabble-rouser–a title which Holmes also proudly claims. Holmes’ mother had graduated from high school at 16 years old and went straight to college. She became a buyer for Sears & Robuck, located in the now-named Willis Tower, where Holmes’ current office is. The Education of a Rabble-Rouser Holmes graduated valedictorian from Edward H. White elementary school. Her mother fought hard to get her into the then-new George Henry Corliss High School. In her freshman year of high school, Holmes sat front and center in her advanced placement English class. The teacher took one look at her and asked, “Why are you sitting in the front of my class? You’re too black, too dumb to be in front of my class. Get up and go

At the CBA’s Annual Meeting, shortly after receiving the gavel of leadership fromDaniel A. Cotter of Butler Rubin (right), with CBA Executive Director Terrence M. Murphy.

back.” Holmes, as she describes her skin color, is “chocolate.” Because it was the only advanced placement English section offered, Holmes couldn’t switch out of the class. “Which meant that me and the teacher were going at it over every comma,” Holmes recalled, “every period, every noun. But it made me a better writer. Not that that’s the way you go about it.” Judge Holmes graduated co-Valedic- torian from Corliss High School, tied in almost every respect with another student. Holmes recalls arguing with the school about whether she should have to share the title at all, noting that she had a perfect attendance record while her so-called co- valedictorian did not. “I think that was my first legal argument,” she quips. For college, though she was accepted or waitlisted at Stanford, Harvard, and other top schools, Holmes chose the University of Illinois because it was the least expensive and close to home. She started off in engi- neering, but later switched to the liberal arts. “I was the only minority, only African American, only female [in Engineering]. I couldn’t get anybody to study with me. I was lonely…so I switched out.” On campus, Holmes came into her role

as a rabble-rouser like her mother, never let- ting injustice pass by unchecked. “I had to learn how to stick up for myself,” she says. During her freshman year rhetoric class, Holmes was “the only black person in the class, the only visible minority.” One story from that class has stayed with her. Papers in the class were graded anonymously, with only social security numbers identifying the students. When handing back graded papers in class, Holmes’ professor slid her a paper without reading off any of the iden- tifying numbers. Holmes remembers the moment clear as day. “How did she know this was my paper?” She thought, “She must know my social security number… Then I looked at the paper and it said ‘F’ … I’ve never failed anything in my life.” The paper wasn’t hers. Holmes had actually received an A+, and the professor had even written on Holmes’ paper Use as example . Before giving Holmes her actual paper, the professor asked her, “Who helped you with this?” Holmes promptly switched out of that section. “Dealing with situations like that… always made me the person who says ‘That’s not right. That’s not fair. We’re standing up.’” Her college friends dared Holmes to take the LSAT. Though she didn’t study

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