In its 130-year history, the Appellate Division, First Department, the prestigious, Manhattan-based midlevel appeals court, has never held oral arguments before an all-African American bench.

That streak was broken this year on Valentine’s Day, when Presiding Justice Dianne T. Renwick and Associate Justices Troy K. Webber, Tanya R. Kennedy, Bahaati Pitt-Burke and Marsha D. Michael took the bench at the First Department’s courthouse on Manhattan’s Madison Square Park.