Constance Baker Motley 2005 Deaths

Constance Baker Motley

attorney who was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. Motley won nine of the ten cases she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the 1962 case in which James Meredith won admission to the University of Mississippi. She wrote briefs for the Brown v. Board Education (1954) case that ended legal segregation of the black and whites in schools. In 1964 Motley was elected to the New York State Senate, the first black woman to do so, and in 1965 became the first woman president of a Manhattan borough. In 1966 she became the first black woman to become a federal judge. Following her judicial appointment, Motley was made chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1982 and senior judge in 1986.