FORMER JUDGE LEAVES LEGACY OF EDUCATION

By Erin France/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

Former Judge Andree Layton Roaf, the first African-American woman named to the Arkansas Supreme Court, died Wednesday.

Roaf, 68, of Pine Bluff died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock after losing consciousness in her Little Rock office, the Associated Press reported.

Roaf was the first African-American woman, and the second woman, appointed to the Arkansas State Supreme Court in 1995.

Later, she became a member of the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Her most recent appointment was May 30, 2007, when she was named the director of the federal Office of Desegregation Monitoring to oversee the desegregation cases in Pulaski County.

News of her death shocked friends in Pine Bluff.

“It literally threw me for a loop because it shocked me so,” said Mathew Ervin, a family friend.

“She was a great mother and a great justice,” Ervin said.

Roaf was married to Dr. Clifton Roaf, a Pine Bluff dentist, and was the mother of retired NFL player Willie Roaf.

“She is an example, not just for African-Americans, but for any young women and young men of this county,” said the Rev. H.O. Gray, a Jefferson County justice of the peace.

Gray said he first met Roaf when she worked as a scientist for the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson.

“I was also the scout master of her two sons,” he added.

One son went from Boy Scouts to become a professional football player and a daughter went on to become an Episcopalian minister.

“It saddens my heart because I know that we’re losing a strong person and a caring person,” Gray said.

Roaf was an active member of Grace Episcopal Church in Pine Bluff, said Dr. Peter Perschbacher, an associate professor in the acquaculture and fisheries department at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Perschbacher said he worked with Roaf on issues of reconciliation between the black and white communities, locally and nationally.

“She really had the passion for trying to bring out the past and try to reconcile it with the future,” he said.

Perschbacher said he and Roaf attended a national meeting where the Episcopal church apologized for its role in slavery.

They also helped plan discussions on race, he said.

“She’s certainly one of the most religiously committed people to the church that I’ve met,” he said.

He said they were planning a future workshop on anti-racism.

“She was very down to earth and she’d talk to anyone,” he said.

“She found her true calling, I think, in trying to better society and God knows, we need it here.”

Gov. Mike Beebe issued a statement about Roaf’s death.

“While Judge Roaf’s career broke barriers, it also repeatedly displayed her skills as a jurist. She will be remembered as a pioneer who served honorably in the Arkansas judiciary,” Beebe said.

When she was sworn in to the high court in 1995, she was quoted as saying, “To end up in this place is almost more than I can imagine. How proud I am to be an Arkansan.”

According to a biography in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, Andree Layton was born on March 31, 1941, in Nashville, Tenn., the daughter of William W. Layton, a government official, and Phoebe A. Layton, an educator.

She grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and in White Hall and Muskegon Heights, Michigan. Originally intending to pursue a career in the biological sciences, she attended Michigan State University and received a bachelor of science degree in zoology in 1962. While an undergraduate, she met, and subsequently married in July 1963, another student, Clifton George Roaf.

In 1975, she took a job as a biologist with NCTR. Also that year, she entered the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, graduating in May 1978 with a Juris Doctor degree.

She is survived by her husband and four adult children.