Constance
Baker Motley, pioneering civil rights lawyer, federal judge
 Constance
Baker Motley was born in New Haven, Conn,, in 1921. After
earning her bachelor’s degree in economics from New York
University in 1943, she entered Columbia Law School and took
a job in 1945 as law clerk to Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel
of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDEF).
She completed her law degree the following year.
Motley continued
working for the LDEF until 1965, becoming assistant counsel
in 1950 and associate counsel in 1961. As such, she was involved
in virtually every important civil rights case of the era,
personally directing many of them, including James Meredith’s
1962 fight for admission to the University of Mississippi.
From 1958 to 1964, Motley served
as a member of the New York State Advisory Council on Employment
and Unemployment Insurance. In 1964, she won a special election
to the New York State Senate, becoming the first African-American
woman to serve in that body. She was elected by the City
Council as President of the Borough of Manhattan in 1965.
In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the federal
district court for the Southern District of New York.
In
1982, Motley was appointed chief judge of the Southern District
Court and held Senior Justice status from 1986 until her
death in 2005.
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