South Carolina’s first black chief justice dead at 86
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Ernest Finney, South Carolina’s first African-American chief justice, died Sunday. He was 86.
South Carolina Deputy Supreme Court Clerk Brenda Shealy confirmed Finney’s death but did not have details on how he died. Finney was suffering from dementia in May 2016 when he drove away from his home, prompting a frantic 90-minte search that found him safe two counties from his Columbia home.
Finney spent a lifetime breaking racial barriers in South Carolina. His rise to the top job at the state’s highest court in 1994 was just another groundbreaking step. The path he forged has been well followed. A woman or an African-American judge has been South Carolina’s chief justice in all but one of the 23 years since Finney was elected to the seat.
“He had one hand on the ladder pulling himself up and one hand behind him pulling others up,” said lawyer I.S. Leevy Johnson, who served with Finney in the South Carolina House while they fought for civil rights together.