Mecklenburg County’s first Black female prosecutor, community advocate Shirley Fulton dies

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Shirley Fulton, the first Black female prosecutor in Mecklenburg County and the first Black woman on the Superior Court bench in North Carolina, has died. She was 71.

During her more than 20 years of service in the court, she was an assistant district attorney, a district court judge, a resident superior court judge and a senior resident superior court judge.

At various points, Fulton was part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Task Force, chair of the board of advisors for the Charlotte School of Law, and president of the Mecklenburg County Bar.

She also headed efforts to redevelop the historic Wesley Heights neighborhood, telling WBTV in 2011, “It was a neighborhood that was originally developed to exclude African Americans. I am very much in favor of historic preservation. This has been a wonderful process in a lot of ways.”

She was also the owner of the neighborhood’s historic George Pierce Wadsworth House and founder of SFultonconsulting.

Fulton was a founding partner of the Tin Fulton Walker & Owen law practice, established in 2002.

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