Cleo Elaine Powell was formally sworn in today as the first African-American woman on the 232-year-old Virginia Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Cynthia D. Kinser administered the oath as Powell placed her hand on a Bible that belonged to her late father, Millas Powell, Jr., and that was held by her mother, Mary C. Powell and husband, Alvin Larnell Dilworth.
"I will be the best justice that I can be," she promised at the end of her remarks prompting a standing ovation in a chamber packed with other members of her family, her friends and dignitaries from the three branches of government.
In his remarks earlier, Gov. Bob McDonnell noted the historic aspects of the occasion and said, "What a tremendous day."
McDonnell said that as he walked by the state Capitol on his way to the ceremony, he noted that inside the building designed by Thomas Jefferson, a movie was being filmed about Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.
A native of Brunswick County, Powell, 54, graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1982.
In 2008 she became the first African-American woman to join the Virginia Court of Appeals. She was a circuit court judge for Chesterfield and Colonial Heights from 2000 to 2008 and a general district court judge there from 1993 to 2000.
Prior to serving as a judge or justice, she was in private practice with Hunton & Williams, a senior assistant Virginia attorney general and corporate counsel for Virginia Power.
She is the second justice to recently join the court. Last month Elizabeth A. McClanahan, 52, a native of Buchanan County, took the oath, the fourth female to do so in the court's long history.
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