Marie Frankie Muse Freeman (née Muse; November 24, 1916 – January 12, 2018) was an American civil rights attorney, and the first woman to be appointed to the United States Commission on Civil Rights (1964–79), a federal fact-finding body that investigates complaints alleging discrimination. Freeman was instrumental in creating the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights founded in 1982. She was a practicing attorney in State and Federal courts for nearly sixty years. In 2007, Freeman was inducted in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia, for her leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement. On February 5, 2015, President Barack Obama appointed Freeman to serve as a Member of the Commission on Presidential Scholars. Biography The daughter of William Brown Muse and Maude Beatrice Smith Muse, Frankie came from a college-educated family. She was born and grew up in Danville, Virginia. At age 16, Muse enrolled at Hampton Institute, which she attended from 1933 to 1936. In 1944, she enrolled at Howard University Law School and received a law degree in 1947. While a student at Howard Law, Freeman became a member of Epsilon Sigma Iota sorority, the first American legal sorority for women of color. In 1948, after writing to several law firms and not hearing back from them, Muse decided to establish her own private practice. She began her practice with pro bono, divorce and criminal cases. After two years, Freeman began her work in civil rights when she became legal counsel to the NAACP legal team that filed suit against the St. Louis Board of Education in 1949. In 1954, Freeman was the lead attorney for the landmark NAACP case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority, which ended legal racial discrimination in public housing with the city. In March 1964, she was nominated by President Lyndon Johnson as a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. On September 15, 1964, the Senate approved Freeman's nomination and she was officially appointed as the first black woman on the civil rights commission. Freeman was subsequently reappointed by presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and held the position until July 1979. She was appointed as Inspector General for the Community Services Administration during Jimmy Carter's presidential administration in 1979. A year later, the Republican Ronald Reagan was elected president and demanded the