News Archive
Historic Marker Honors Life of Harriette Bailey Conn, '55
04/14/2022
A historic marker has been erected near the intersection of Washington Street and Capitol Avenue in Indianapolis to honor the life and life’s work of Harriette Bailey Conn, ’55.
Born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Conn graduated from Crispus Attucks High School in 1937 at age 14. She graduated from Talladega College in Alabama in 1941. Conn married and had six children before entering law school in 1950 at what would become IU McKinney. Conn was a longtime resident of the Butler-Tarkington area in Indianapolis, and a neighborhood newsletter contains a story about her life. Richard Humphrey, a reference and instruction librarian at the Ruth Lilly Law Library, now retired, wrote a history of Conn’s life and work for the law school’s website in 2018.
The marker honors Conn as a trailblazing Black lawyer who became a deputy Attorney General for Indiana, served as an assistant city attorney for Indianapolis, and was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives. She became the first African American and first woman to be appointed Public Defender of Indiana.
