Constance Baker Motley

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Constance Baker Motley

Constance Baker Motley (September 14, 1921 – September 28, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, state senator, and President of Manhattan, New York City.

Early Life and Academics

She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the ninth of twelve children. Her parents had immigrated from Nevis, in the Caribbean; her mother was the founder of the New Haven chapter of the NAACP. With financial help from a local philanthropist, Clarence Blakeslee, she initially attended Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, before deciding to return north to attend integrated New York University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1943. Motley then obtained her law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1946. Her legal career began as a law clerk in the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), where she worked with a distinguished group of civil rights attorneys, among them future U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, prominent Jewish-American civil-rights advocate Jack Greenberg, and many others. As the LDF's first female attorney, she became Associate Counsel to the LDF, making her a lead trial attorney in a number of early and significant civil rights cases.

Civil Rights Work

In 1950 she wrote the original complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The first African-American woman ever to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Meredith v. Fair she successfully won James Meredith's effort to be the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962. Motley was successful in nine of the ten cases she argued before the Supreme Court. The tenth decision, regarding jury composition, was eventually overturned in her favor. She was otherwise a key legal strategist in the civil rights movement, helping to desegregate Southern schools, buses, and lunch counters.

Political & Judicial Firsts

In 1964, Motley became the first African American woman elected to the New York State Senate. In 1965, she was chosen Manhattan Borough President—the first woman in that position. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson named her a district judge for the United States District Court Southern District of New York, making her the first African American woman federal court judge, a position she held, including a term as chief judge, until her death.

Honors

In 1993, she was inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame. In 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. The NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal, the organization's highest honor, in 2003. Motley was a prominent honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Later life

Motley died of congestive heart failure on September 28, 2005 at NYU Downtown Hospital in New York City. Her funeral was held at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church in New Haven, Connecticut where she was married years earlier.

References

• Telford Taylor, Constance Baker Motley, and James K. Feibleman, Perspectives on justice, Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, [1975].
• Constance Baker Motley, Equal justice under law: an autobiography, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. ISBN: 0374148651.
• Rachel Christmas Derrick, "A Columbian Ahead of Her Time", Columbia Magazine, Spring 2004.
• Hodgson, Godfrey, "Constance Baker Motley", The Guardian, Oct. 1, 2005.
• Douglas Martin, "Constance Baker Motley, Civil Rights Trailblazer, Dies at 84", New York Times, Sept. 29, 2005.
• Larry Neumeister, "Legendary Civil Rights Lawyer Constance Baker Motley Dies at 84", Newsday (Associated Press), Sept. 28, 2005.
• Judge Constance Baker Motley - Brown@50, Howard University School of Law
• "Judge Constance Baker Motley: A Life in Pursuit of Justice", obituary notice in The Defender (newsletter of the NAACP LDF), winter 2006.

External links

• Constance Baker Motley's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project

New York State Senate
Preceded by James L. Watson	New York State Senate, 21st District 1964–1965	Succeeded by Jeremiah Bloom
Political offices
Preceded by Edward R. Dudley	Borough President of Manhattan 1965 - 1966	Succeeded by Percy Sutton

Persondata
Name	Motley, Constance Baker
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	September 14, 1921
Place of birth
Date of death	September 28, 2005
Place of death