Groundbreaking federal
judge dies

NEW YORK — Federal Judge Constance Baker Motley, who as a young lawyer represented Martin Luther King Jr. and played a pivotal role in the nation’s civil rights struggle, has died. She was 84.

Motley died of congestive heart failure at NYU Downtown Hospital on Wednesday morning, according to her son, Joel Motley III.

Motley’s early career found her fighting racism in many of the nation’s landmark segregation cases. After a brief foray into politics, in 1966 she became the first black woman appointed to the federal bench and began a distinguished four-decade span as a judge.

Motley was born in New Haven, Conn., the ninth of 12 children. Her mother, Rachel Baker, was a founder of the New Haven NAACP. Her father, Willoughby Alva Baker, worked as a chef for student organizations at Yale University.

Her interest in civil rights grew after she was turned away at age 15 from a public beach because she was black.

Motley earned a degree in economics in 1943 from New York University, and three years later, got her law degree from Columbia Law School.

In 1945, she became a law clerk to Thurgood Marshall, who was then chief counsel of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Over the next two decades, she rose to associate counsel of the organization and worked on some of the nation’s most famous civil rights cases, including preparing the draft complaint in 1950 for what would become Brown v. Board of Education.

Also in the early 1960s, she successfully argued for 1,000 school children to be reinstated in Birmingham, Ala., after the local school board had expelled them for demonstrating.

In 1966, President Johnson nominated her to the federal bench in Manhattan. She was confirmed nine months later, though her appointment was opposed by conservative federal judges and southern politicians.

Over the next four decades, Motley handled a number of civil rights cases, including her decision in 1978 allowing a female reporter to be admitted to the New York Yankees’ locker room. (Associated Press)