As “Reasonable Doubt’s” Jax Stewart becomes the newest Black woman lawyer to grace our television screens, TheWrap wanted to take a trip down memory lane by listing the most iconic Black woman TV lawyers our time. For fans, these roles may just be the characters we show up to watch in our favorite shows weekly, but for the actresses that play them and the writers that write them, their existence has impacted on-screen representation for Black women as well as the careers of Black Hollywood actresses. That rings true for Kerry Washington’s role in “Scandal.
” While we primarily recognize Olivia Pope as a crisis manager in the series, she was a former lawyer who often exhibited those tactics from her legal career. Until Washington signed on for the role — which ABC originally suggested a non-Black actress take — there hadn’t been a drama series with a leading Black woman on TV for And it ultimately paved the way for future Black actresses to get their shot. And on the flip side, Black actresses have pointed out how these roles can sometimes box Black, specifically darker-skinned, actresses in with these type of authoritative positions.
“After a while you get known for your ‘power.’ People see your power, your strength, and they want you to play that all the time,” Erika Alexander told TheWrap while discussing her character Coraline from Cord Jefferson’s Oscar-winning “American Fiction.” “Even with ‘Living Single.
’ Maxine Shaw has a certain b.