Vanita Nicholas

Vanita W. Nicholas was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up there, the daughter of a Lawyer and a Teacher/College Counselor/Professor. Her father, one of 16 children, grew up in South Carolina, attended Howard Law, and played an instrumental role in the landmark case, Shelly vs. Kramer, which held restrictive covenants as unconstitutional. Her mother, an only child, grew up in Houston, Texas and went on to obtain 3 Master’s Degrees and a Ph.D. Vanita spent her childhood summers in Houston and while in St. Louis, she and her family were deeply involved in the Baptist church. She attended a segregated elementary school in St. Louis and was part of the first generation to attend an integrated junior high school and high school. She later attended Fisk University, where she majored in foreign languages before attending Law School in Houston, Texas. She moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where she taught ESL at L.A. City College before becoming the only Black woman on the faculty in the Law Department where she taught Paralegal Studies for more than 20 years. In 2000, she transferred to West L.A. College before retiring in 2013. She and her husband, Tony, have been married over 40 years, they have three children and five grandchildren, including one who recently enrolled at her alma mater, Fisk University.