Born in Miami, Florida, on August 27, 1923, Gwendolyn Sawyer Cherry was the daughter of one of the first Black doctors to practice in the city. Cherry enrolled at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) and graduated in 1946 with a degree in biology and chemistry.
She earned a master’s degree from New York University and married George Barnett. They had two children. She later married James Cherry.
For 20 years, she taught math at Miami Northwestern Senior High School.
Cherry was the first Black female law student to enroll at the University of Miami School of Law, but she completed her law degree at her undergraduate alma mater.
Admitted to the Florida Bar in 1965, she has the distinction of being the first Black woman to pass the exam and practice law in Dade County. She taught law at FAMU and was one of nine lawyers who formed Legal Services of Greater Miami. Cherry was a founder of the National Association of Black Women Attorneys.
In 1970, Cherry was the first Black woman elected to the Florida House of Representatives. She introduced the Equal Rights Amendment and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day state holiday. In 1972, Cherry chaired the Minority Affairs Committee for the Democratic National Convention and the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Cherry chaired Florida’s committee for the 1978 International Women’s Year and she coauthored Portraits in Color: The Lives of Colorful Negro Women, profiling 55 women who overcame racial barriers.
Cherry served in Florida’s House of Representatives until her death in an automobile accident in 1979. Her funeral took place at FAMU. During the service Stella McGriff represented the Alpha Epsilon Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. She spoke about Cherry as two other sorors placed a bouquet with the sorority colors at the foot of the stage. In April of 1980 the Delta Sigma Chapter presented the Gwen Cherry Memorial Award to Edith M. Fresh.
Cherry was posthumously admitted to the State of Florida’s Women’s Hall of Fame in 1986.
The National Bar Association Women Lawyers Division Dade County Chapter changed its name to the Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association (GSCBWLA) in 2005.
In 2008, the Florida A&M University College of Law named a lecture hall in her memory. The Gwendolyn Sawyer Cherry, Esquire Lecture Hall is classroom and a small moot courtroom. There is also an endowed scholarship in her name. There are Miami-Dade Housing Agency apartments named for her and a park in Miami-Dade County bears her name. 
