African American yers faced an uphill battle, but over time, helped the country expand civil rights protections and strengthen equality under the — and are still working hard to spread justice today. We asked community members at the University of Virginia School of to write about their legal heroes in honor of Black History Month.
Louis Martinet was one of the first Black yers in Louisiana. He was a doctor, educator and publisher, but he is probably best remembered as a leading organizer in the fight for equal citizenship after the fall of Reconstruction. Martinet knew that the fight against Jim Crow had to occur both inside and outside the courtroom: He organized confrontational rallies and mass meetings, but also crafted the legal challenge to Louisiana’s Separate Car Act (which tragically ended with defeat in
Raised in Norfolk during Jim Crow, Elaine Jones decided to challenge societal wrongs at an early age. In 1967, she became the first Black woman to choose UVA . By graduation, Jones had turned down a lucrative firm position to pursue civil rights with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She was soon representing young Black men on death row in the deep South, and receiving KKK threats. Her 34 years of judicial and legislative advocacy with LDF included challenging inequities in employment, education, voting, housing and criminal justice. In 1993, Jones became the fourth president and director-counsel of LDF, the first woman in that position. In short, Jones is a civil rights hero who dedicated her life to advancing racial justice. Her impact reflects her inner light, courage, optimism and will to make America live up to its promise of universal equality and liberty.
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While Black yers were historically excluded from full participation in the predominantly white American legal profession in the 19th and early 20th century, a young Black Harvard graduate, Charles Hamilton Houston, would rise to prominence and influence after joining the Howard School faculty in 1923. As the first Black editorial board member of the Harvard Review, Houston made quite the impact during his time at Harvard School. By the time he graduated with his S.J.D. in 1923, Houston was sold on the importance of formal legal education and he understood that professors and scholars played a vital role in not just educating yers but also developing their understanding of how they might use the as a tool in civil rights movements. The following year, in 1924, Houston would become the dean of Howard University School.
As a legal educator, Charles Hamilton Houston coined the phrase “social engineering, ” and this concept would continue beyond Houston’s lifetime to become a legal training principle indoctrinated at the Howard University School and the NAACP’s National Legal Committee and the Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Houston’s vision for Howard School — one of the premier schools for Black Americans at the time — was to offer “superior professional training and extraordinary motivation ... to prepare the professional cadres needed to lead successful litigation against racism as practiced by government and sanctioned by .”
Houston would go on to educate and mentor a generation of Black yers, including the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. Because of his legacy, Charles Hamilton Houston has also been fondly crowned “the man who killed Jim Crow.”
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As the dean of UVA , I see more Black legal heroes within our community than I can possibly enumerate here — from “firsts” Gregory Swanson ’51, John Merchant ’58 and Elaine Jones ’70, through the students who founded the Black Students Association here 50 years ago, to the pathbreaking judges, yers and legal scholars among our alumni, to our current students, who continue to seek justice every day.
Looking beyond UVA, I would highlight the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. As a multiracial Black person who wrestled with her sexuality and gender identity throughout her life, Murray lived intersectionality long before Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term. As a trailblazer, Murray broke barriers she faced as a result of both her race and her sex in myriad areas of American society. As a yer and seeker of justice, Murray was a participant and leader in numerous movements for equality and human rights for more than half a century. And as a thinker and legal scholar, Murray was an important intellectual architect of modern legal doctrines prohibiting both race and sex discrimination. An unsung hero for far too long, hers is a name that has begun to join lists like this one, where in my view it undeniably belongs.
The late Justice Thurgood Marshall would be on any short list for the most consequential yer of the 20th century. His many successes, including his remarkable won-lost record as a Supreme Court advocate before he became a justice, were the result of superb legal skill and strategy. His clients prevailed in
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And dozens of other cases because of his and his colleagues’ meticulous planning and carefully crafted arguments. As a justice, he was a key figure in the court’s criminal procedure revolution. Equally remarkable, however, was that the myriad acts of inhumanity he suffered and witnessed never diminished his own humanity. In person, he was charming, funny, and a font of stories and wise observations about the world. He set an example that all yers should try to emulate.
, a David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of and former UVA dean, clerked for Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Constance Baker Motley, a civil rights movement hero who broke boundaries as the first Black woman to argue a Supreme Court case and to serve on the federal bench, played a crucial role in ending racial segregation. Working for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Motley wrote the initial complaint for
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. Several years later, representing the “Little Rock Nine, ” her team won a Supreme Court ruling denying the Arkansas School Board the right to delay desegregation. Motley later led litigation integrating Southern universities, most famously helping James Meredith enroll at the University of Mississippi. Despite facing constant danger in the South, she continued to travel throughout Southern states for her litigation efforts, which included defending the Freedom Riders and arguing for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s right to march in Albany, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama. She once stated, “As the first Black and first woman, I am proving in everything I do that Blacks and women are as capable as anyone.
, Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Professor of ; professor of education, Curry School of Education; professor of , education and public policy, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
Constance Baker Motley fought on the forefront for civil rights and broke down many racial and gender barriers in the legal field. As a clerk for Thurgood Marshall, Motley worked on multiple notable cases, including
Influential Black Female Lawyers In History » Geller Law Group
. She also worked as a legal strategist during the civil rights movement, serving alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy to help desegregate Southern schools and lunch counters. During the 1950s and 1960s, she argued 10 civil rights cases before the Supreme Court. As Motley turned her attention towards politics, she became the first Black woman elected to the New York senate, the first woman to serve as the president of the Borough of Manhattan, and later the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge when she was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Constance Baker Motley played a significant role in civil rights and paved the way for Black women yers to come.
All future litigators dream of arguing in front of the Supreme Court of the United States or of becoming a federal judge. However, these were not possible for Black women until Constance Baker Motley pushed through the long-existing barrier.
Motley operated as an exception to the rule for her entire career. She was the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s first female attorney. In her role as associate counsel there, she wrote the original complaint in
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She continued to rise in her career when she became the first African American federal judge as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge Motley serves as a personal inspiration and as an inspiration for all Black women yers.
Justice Thomas is brave, brilliant and marches to his own beat. He conscientiously wrestles with his limited, but important, role as a federal judge and then goes about his duties, showing no fear or favor. He is nobody’s man, but instead is his “Grandfather’s Son” [the name of Thomas’ memoir]. When I consider what he overcame, what he stands for, and the influence he has on the court and on America, I am proud to call him my hero.
As the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson has brought national attention to the enduring problems of racism, mass incarceration, the death penalty and life-in-prison sentences for juveniles. What I respect so much about Stevenson, though, is that he and the attorneys
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