Canada’s first Black female lawyer honoured with memorial park in Calgary

On Feb. 22, 2026, a Sunnyside park was named after Violet King, Canada's first Black female lawyer and longtime Calgary resident.

Violet King, Canada’s first Black female lawyer, was honoured during a special ceremony in Calgary this weekend.

A park, located at 518 Seventh Ave. N.W., across from her former home in Sunnyside, was named after her during an event on Sunday.

King was the first Black Canadian to obtain a law degree in Alberta in 1953 and first Black person to be named to the Alberta Bar the next year.

She was also the first Black woman to become a lawyer in Canada.

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“I think she was a very significant person in Canadian and Alberta history,” said Lorna Cordero, a volunteer with the Hillhurst Sunnyside Heritage committee.

“She and her family lived in this home for more than 40 years and without some sort of commemoration, it would be forgotten. The park was something that she and her family would have looked at from their living room window everyday, walked by it everyday, played in it and maybe utilized it in some way.”

The committee’s application to name the park in her honour was approved by Calgary city council’s executive committee on Feb. 17.

Organizers say King’s parents Frank and Stella were part of a group of farmers who migrated from Oklahoma to Alberta in 1911 to avoid racism.