Tom Colbert

(1949 - Present)

Profession: Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court

Hometown: Sapulpa

Inducted: 2017

In 1949, just a few blocks down the street from the Oklahoma Supreme Court at the Oklahoma Memorial Hospital, Tom Colbert was born. He would go on to attend the University of Oklahoma and would later serve on the same court, accomplishments that at the time of his birth would have seemed almost impossible because of segregation laws and societal factors of the era. Colbert made history as the first African American Oklahoman to sit on the Oklahoma Appellate Courts, first chief judge of the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals, first to serve on the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and the first to serve as chief justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

He was the eldest child of a single mother and his family relied on welfare in his early years. His mother and other family members instilled in him a drive to work hard, dream big, and pursue an education to break the cycle of poverty. Colbert excelled in academics and sports, earning degrees from Eastern Oklahoma State College, Kentucky State University, and Eastern Kentucky University.

After serving in the United States Army, he was a public school teacher in Chicago before returning to Oklahoma and earning his juris doctor degree from the OU College of Law in 1982. In 2000, then Governor Frank Keating appointed Colbert to serve on the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals, beginning a tradition of making Oklahoma judicial history. Justice Colbert considers himself to be a soldier in the war for equality, "I hope to show students that they, too, can become anything they desire with hard work, determination, picking a dream and sticking with it as long as it is noble and honest."