Harry A. Cole was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 lawyer and jurist from Baltimore, Maryland. Cole was also a member of the Maryland State Senate

Maryland State Senate

The Maryland Senate, sometimes referred to as the Maryland State Senate, is the upper house of the General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland...

 and the first African-American ever elected to the Maryland Senate and the first African-American to serve on the Maryland Court of Appeals

Maryland Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals of Maryland is the supreme court of the U.S. state of Maryland. The court, which is composed of one chief judge and six associate judges, meets in the Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal Building in the state capital, Annapolis...

.

Background

Born in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, Cole was one of five children. His father died while he was an infant and his mother moved the family back to Baltimore where she had grown up. Cole attended Baltimore public schools and graduated from Douglass High School

Frederick Douglass Senior High School (Baltimore, Maryland)

Frederick Douglass High School known locally as Douglass is a public high school located in Baltimore, Maryland, US. Established in 1883 as the Colored High and Training School, Douglass is the second oldest historically integrated public high school in the United States...

, He then attended and graduated as class valedictorian from Morgan State College

Morgan State University

Morgan State University, formerly Centenary Biblical Institute , Morgan College and Morgan State College , is a historically black college in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Morgan is Maryland's designated public urban university and the largest HBCU in the state of Maryland...

 with an A.B.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in 1943. Immediately after college, Cole joined the U.S. Army where he was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps. He received an honorable discharge in 1946. Cole resumed his education and went on to the University of Maryland Law School where he earned an LL.B. in 1949. He was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1949.

Judicial career

Associate Judge, Municipal Court of Baltimore City, 1967. Associate Judge, Supreme Bench of Baltimore City (now Circuit Court), 1967-77. Associate Judge, Maryland Court of Appeals, 1977-91.

Personal life

Cole married the former Doris Freeland in 1958; three daughters: Susan, Harriette and Stephanie. He died of pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

at Church Home, Baltimore, Maryland on February 14, 1999.