Daphne Barbee-Wooten is an attorney in Hawai`i. She served as President of African American Lawyers Association in 2003. She has practiced law for over 30 years and is active in law, politics, writing, and dance. Her book African American Attorneys in Hawai`i describes the lively, colorful history of African American attorneys with ties to the islands, from Justice Thurgood Marshall to President Barack Obama.
Barbee-Wooten writes lively, informative articles and essays. Her works include “Hawai`i’s First Black Lawyer (Hawai`i Bar Journal, February 2004), “The Lawgiver: George Marion Johnson, J.D., LLD,” (Hawai`i Bar Journal, February 2005), “Spreading the Aloha of Civil Rights” (Hawai`i Bar Journal, October 1999), and “Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission” (Hawai`i Bar Journal, August 1993).
She co-edited and was a contributing writer for “Our Rights, Our Lives” (Hawai`i Women Lawyers Handbook, 3rd ed., December 1996). Her essay “Visiting Nanny Town” appears in A GO Girl! The Black Woman’s Guide to Travel and Adventure (The Eight Mountain Press, 1997). She contributed chapters to They Followed the Tradewinds: African Americans in Hawai`i (University of Hawai`i Press, 2004, rev. ed. 2014). She also is a regular contributing writer to Mahogany and Afro-Hawai`i News, monthly periodicals which emphasize events within the African American community in Hawai`i. Barbee-Wooten tells the little-known stories of some of those attorneys who broke barriers and made their impact on the legal landscape, leaving the door open for many more to be told.