September 14, 1921 Constance Baker Motley, hall of fame civil rights activist, lawyer and judge, was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Motley earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from New York University in 1943 and her law degree from Columbia Law School in 1946. She began her career as a law clerk at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, eventually becoming associate counsel and the LDF’s first female attorney. In 1950, she wrote the original complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1962, Motley became the first African American woman to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court in Meredith v. Fair. She was successful in winning James Meredith’s case to be the first African American student admitted to the University of Mississippi. Motley was successful in nine out of the ten cases that she argued before the Supreme Court. She had a succession of firsts for an African American woman, including in 1964 being the first elected to the New York State Senate, in 1965 the first chosen Manhattan Borough President, and in 1966 the first appointed a federal court judge. In 1993, Motley was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2001, President William J. Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second highest civilian award in the United States, and in 2003 she received the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingarn Medal. Motley published her autobiography, “Equal Justice Under Law: An Autobiography” in 1999. She died September 28, 2005. Her name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. (Source: Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History)
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 20:48:46 +0000
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