Gertrude Elzora Durden Rush (August 5, 1880 – September 5, 1962) was the first African-American female lawyer in Iowa, admitted to the Iowa bar in 1918.[1] She helped found the National Bar Association in 1925.
She took over her husband's law practice after his death. In 1921 she was elected president of the Colored Bar Association. In 1925 Rush and four other black lawyers founded the Negro Bar Association after being denied admission to the American Bar Association.
Rush was also an activist in the civil rights and suffrage movements, as well as an author and playwright.
As of 2017, the Iowa National Bar Association is erecting a public art project, A Monumental Journey, in honor of Rush and the others who opened the profession of law to African Americans.
^J. Clay Smith, Jr., Thurgood Marshall (1999). Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844–1944. University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN978-0-8122-1685-1
^Warwick, Judy (1994). "Rush, Gertrude E. Durden". Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 997. ISBN0-253-32774-1.