Yashiba ‘Red’ Blanchard: How a Voice for the Voiceless Became an Elected Probate Court Judge in Jefferson County, Alabama
By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Yashiba “Red” Blanchard likes to say she’s a “voice for the voiceless.” And that’s not a slogan she began when campaigning for Jefferson County Probate Court Judge Place 1. It goes back to eighth-grade in Birmingham City Schools, she said.
“I don’t like it when people can’t express themselves when they are mistreated,” she told The Birmingham Times. “That’s something I decided to do [speak for others] on the debate team in the 8th grade in Washington Elementary. I would have classmates that would get picked on and I would take up for them … I’m for the person who can’t speak for themselves.”
Blanchard, 50, can now be a voice for tens of thousands. According to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election with 98 percent of the vote counted, Blanchard received 143,971 votes or 52.22 percent to defeat Republican John Amari who received 131,502 votes or 47.70 percent for the Probate Court Place 1 seat making her the first, along with fellow attorney and sorority sister Jameria Moore, Place 2, Black females elected to Probate Court in Jefferson County.
Probate courts have jurisdiction over matters dealing with wills, estates, real property, mental illness, and adoption. The Place 1 seat has more of the administrative duties.
“I’m so elated that the citizens of Jefferson County have put their trust in me to lead in this position,” Blanchard told the Times Tuesday from her Watch Party at Dread River Distillery on the Southside. “I had a magnificent team with God first, my family, my husband, my children. We put it all together and made it happen.”
Blanchard, who will be sworn in sometime in January, credited her education both in city schools as well as her neighborhoods for her journey as lawyer and judge to probate court.
“I will always give Holy Grail to the Bright Star on the Hill – that’s Wenonah High School,” Blanchard said, “only the best come out of there. I will tell anybody the Birmingham City School System that we can do whatever anybody in these United States can do and we can do it better.”
As for her upbringing, Blanchard said, “it was my village that poured into me, a lot of people would say I had a hard knock life because I didn’t have a silver spoon, but it was the community … It’s the connections I made in the village. It’s the people that raised me. It’s the friends that I made that are lifetime friends. Not my lawyer friends and colleagues but the friends I had when I was growing up.”
Blanchard said they were taught well, “we were disciplined not only by our parents but by everybody in the community and they valued education … that’s a recipe for success.”
The judge-elect said she is aware of the challenges young people face in inner-city communities. “I stayed in Goldwire Circle in Titusville and it was right next door to Loveman’s Village (the razed public housing community) … When we were growing up [and didn’t act right] the whole community could beat our behinds. Not just our parents.”
Her parents, she said, “originated from the Brickyard in Ensley, mother from Fountain Heights and Avondale, predominantly Black communities … we stayed inside of Prince Hall apartments.”
But they were exposed to a world outside of the neighborhood, she said.
“We had other interests, we would read, we would go to the library, go to ‘lockouts’ in the YMCA – they would let schools go the lockdowns (at the Y) on Fridays and we would all come together and we had our leaders in our communities who told us we could be what we wanted to be. But they stated the importance of education. When things got tough, we were taught to push through.”
Born and raised in Birmingham, Blanchard is a graduate of Wenonah High School and Jefferson State Community College, with an Associate of Applied Sciences Degree. She also holds a degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in political science, and a master’s degree in public administration. She received her Juris Doctorate Degree from Birmingham School of Law and has been successfully defending cases at her law firm Glenn Blanchard and Associates, P.C.
Part of her campaign is to educate residents on their voting rights; advocate for programs to help felons recover voting rights; ensure reliability of elections and fully staff polls; provide resources for those representing themselves in probate court; manage courts to avoid clogging the system.
Each year, more than 600,000 people are served in some capacity by the Jefferson County Probate Court. Probate is considered by many as a family court to resolve or assist in matters such as settling the estate of a deceased loved one, legal name changes, adoptions, elections, marriage licenses, and the recording of land records.
Blanchard said she will always be a voice to those like the little Black girls in the city where she was raised. And has this message: “Keep your head up high and reach for the stars. You can be whatever you want to be. It doesn’t matter where your parents come from, it doesn’t matter where you come from, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, just keep God first and push. The sky is the limit. Anything above that we can get it as well.”
“I wanted to be, you know, like [iconic TV lawyer] Perry Mason and save everybody. However, as my career developed … and working with families and trying to keep families together when they go through a loss of a loved one, that really started to touch my heart and I recognized that the probate court is a court that can help keep families together.”
