Rachel Bassette Noel (January 15, 1918 – February 4, 2008) was an American educator, politician and civil rights leader in Denver, Colorado. She is known for the "Noel Resolution", a 1968 plan to integrate the Denver city school district, and her work to implement that plan, as well as other work on civil rights. When elected to the Denver Public Schools Board of Education in 1965, Noel was the first African-American woman elected to public office in Colorado. In 1996, Noel was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. She was born in Hampton, Virginia to college-educated parents; her father was a doctor. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Hampton Institute and Fisk University, respectively. She and her husband, a physician from Jackson, Mississippi, moved to Denver after he finished his residency. Personal life Rachel Bassette was born in 1918 in Hampton, Virginia to parents who were both college graduates. Her father, A. W. E. Bassette Jr., was a lawyer. From an early age, her parents emphasized the importance of education. Bassette graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Hampton Institute (now known as Hampton University) and earned a master's degree in sociology from Fisk University, both historically black universities. In October 1942, she married Dr. Edmond F. Noel (1916-1986) from Jackson, Mississippi, whom she had met at Fisk. Born in Holmes County, Mississippi and reared in Jackson, he was named for a half-uncle, Edmond Favor Noel, governor of Mississippi, serving 1908 to 1912. The African-American physician and European-American politician were from different lines of descendants of Leland Noel, a major white planter in Holmes County before the American Civil War. Noel completed his undergraduate degree at Howard University and got his medical degree at Fisk. Edmond Noel served as a medical officer in the Army during World War II, from 1942 to April 1946. After he completed his residency, the Noel couple moved to Denver, Colorado in 1949. It was during years of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the West. Edmond Noel was the first African American to practice medicine in Denver. He was affiliated with Rose Hospital, a new hospital founded by the Jewish community. He was the first African American to have staff privileges at a hospital in Denver. He also set up his own practice in the Five Points community. Together they had a son, Edmond "Buddy"