Carol Lani Guinier was an American educator,legal scholar,and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School,and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship there. Before coming to Harvard in 1998,Guinier taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for ten years. Her scholarship covered the professional responsibilities of public lawyers,the relationship between democracy and the law,the role of race and gender in the political process,college admissions,and affirmative action. In 1993 President Bill Clinton nominated Guinier to be United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights,but withdrew the nomination.
Smith v. Allwright,321 U.S. 649 (1944),was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and,by extension,racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set their internal rules,including the use of white primaries. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to delegate its authority over elections to parties in order to allow discrimination to be practiced. This ruling affected all other states where the party used the white primary rule.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,Inc. is an American civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
Constance Baker Motley was an American jurist and politician who served as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Jack Greenberg was an American attorney and legal scholar. He was the Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1961 to 1984,succeeding Thurgood Marshall. He was involved in numerous crucial cases,including Brown v. Board of Education,which ended segregation in public schools. In all,he argued 40 civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court,and won almost all of them.
Derrick Albert Bell Jr. was an American lawyer,legal scholar,and civil rights activist. Bell first worked for the U.S. Justice Department,then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,where he supervised over 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.
Robert Lee Carter was an American lawyer,civil rights activist and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Zephaniah Alexander Looby was a lawyer in Nashville,Tennessee,who was active in the civil rights movement. Born in the British West Indies,he immigrated to the United States at the age of 15;he earned degrees at Howard University,Columbia University Law School and New York University.
Nathaniel Raphael Jones was an American attorney,judge,and law professor. As general counsel of the NAACP,Jones fought to end school segregation,including in the northern United States. From 1979 until 1995,he served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit before assuming senior status,and in 2002 retired to resume a private legal practice.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) is a national non-profit civil rights organization formed in 1968 by Jack Greenberg to protect the rights of Latinos in the United States. Founded in San Antonio,Texas,it is currently headquartered in Los Angeles,California and maintains regional offices in Sacramento,San Antonio,Chicago,and Washington,D.C.
Lillie May Carroll Jackson,pioneer civil rights activist,organizer of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. Invariably known as "Dr. Lillie","Ma Jackson",and the "mother of the civil rights movement",Lillie May Carroll Jackson pioneered the tactic of non-violent resistance to racial segregation used by Martin Luther King Jr. and others during the early civil rights movement.
Julius LeVonne Chambers was an American lawyer,civil rights leader and educator.
John A. Payton was an African-American civil rights attorney. In 2008,he was appointed the sixth president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund serving in that post until his death. Prior to this,he was a partner at the law firm WilmerHale for 20 years.
Ifill is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Ian F. Haney López is an American legal scholar who is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at UC Berkeley School of Law. He works in the area of racism and racial justice in American law.
Penda D. Hair is an American lawyer. She is the Legal Director of Forward Justice,a law,policy,and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial,social,and economic justice in the U.S. South. A frequent television and radio commentator,she speaks regularly on issues of race and democracy. Previously,she was a founding co-director of the civil rights group Advancement Project.
Jacqueline Ann Berrien,often known as Jackie Berrien,was an American civil rights attorney and government official. From 2009 to 2014,Berrien served as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under President Barack Obama. Prior to this,Berrien had served as Associate Director Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Sherrilyn Ifill is an American lawyer and the Vernon E. Jordan,Jr.,Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University. She is a law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She was the Legal Defense Fund's seventh president since Thurgood Marshall founded the organization in 1940. Ifill is a nationally recognized expert on voting rights and judicial selection. In 2021,Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world on its annual Time 100 list.
Vivian "Buster" Burey Marshall was an American civil rights activist and was married for 25 years,until her death,to Thurgood Marshall,lead counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,who also managed Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Following her death,her husband was later appointed as the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Natasha Clarise Merle is an American lawyer from New York who serves as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
