Gertrude Rush

This month, St. Paul A.M.E. Church celebrates 150 years. We’re going to celebrate with them, and take a closer look at some of the congregation’s most influential members and their contributions to Black life in central Iowa.

Today we’ll kick off our series with Gertrude Rush. Mrs. Rush caught my attention as the only woman featured on a stone memorial outside of St. Paul’s A.M.E. church. When St. Paul was founded in 1872, Gertrude Rush was a 2 year old living in Navasota, Texas. She moved to Des Moines in 1907 and graduated from Des Moines University. She went on to read the law with her husband, James B. Rush, and became Iowa’s first Black woman lawyer in 1918. Mrs. Rush passed the bar in 1918, but was denied admission to the American Bar Association because of her race and gender. In response, Mrs. Rush, her husband, and three other Black attorneys (all men) established the National Negro Bar Association (later the National Bar Association) in 1925. She maintained licenses to practice law in both Iowa and Illinois, and split time between her Des Moines and Chicago offices. Mrs. Rush was the first and only Black woman attorney in Iowa until the 1950s, when Mrs. Willie Stevenson Glanton emerged on the scene.

Gertrude Rush was an influential figure in creating opportunities for Black Des Moines residents to enjoy arts and culture. She was involved in multiple theater productions, both as a director and a playwright.

Gertrude Rush died in 1962, and was admitted to Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. The photo below is from Iowa State University’s Catt Center collection.