Higginbotham, A. Leon, Jr.

February 25, 1928
December 14, 1998

A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., one of the nation's most prominent African-American judges, was born in Trenton, New Jersey. In 1944, he enrolled at Purdue University but left after the college president informed him that the college would not provide heated dormitories to black students. Higginbotham graduated from Antioch College in 1949. He then attended Yale Law School, graduating with honors in 1952. In 1954, after serving briefly as assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, he helped to found Norris, Green, Harris, and Higginbotham, a Philadelphia law firm. Higginbotham also became active in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as chapter president starting in 1960.

In 1962 Higginbotham was named commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. Two years later he was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President Lyndon Johnson. He soon became an outstanding member of the court and he distinguished himself by his liberal opinions on abortion and prisoner's rights. In 1977 Higginbotham was elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Jimmy Carter. In 1989, the year after he published In the Matter of Color, a study of race and the legal process, he became chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, the third African American to hold such a position. After retiring from the bench in 1993, he was named law professor at Harvard University. He also served as counsel to the elite New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. In 1995 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. In 1996 he published a second study of race and law, Shades of Freedom.

See also National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Politics in the United States

greg robinson (1996)