Boce Barlow completed his high school studies in Hartford in 1933, continued to Howard University, where he served as senior class president, and received his degree with honors in 1939. He served in a segregated Army regiment in the southeast Pacific before moving on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1949. He became a judge in 1957 at the age of 42. In 1966, he was chosen to serve in the State Senate, and two years later, he attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago as a delegate.