National Lawyers Guild Chicago Chapter

The Libby Scooter:

National Executive Committee President: Marjorie Cohn Executive VP: Executive VP: Treasurer: Roxana Orrell National VPs: National Legal Worker VP: National Law Student VPs: Ryann Zelewski, National Jailhouse VPs: ------ NLG Constitution NLG Bylaws ------ "We Are Family" by Paul Harris "About the Guild," by C. Peter Erlinder George Crockett Edward Dawley Judge Hubert T. Delaney Earl B. Dickerson (1891-1986) Clifford Durr Royal W. France Ann Fagan Ginger Ernie Goodman (NLG President, 1964-1967) Dr. William H. Hastie (1904-1976) Len Holt Carol King Arthur Kinoy - a people's attorney John McTernan (1910-2005) Louis Redding (1901-1998) Maurice Sugar Doris Brin Walker Statue of Guild luminary Louis L. Redding in Wilmington, Delaware's City-County Building. Redding was the first Black lawyer in Delaware.  NLG Litigation in History Mendez v. Westminster Brown v. Board of Ed. Dombrowski v. Pfister Goldberg v. Kelly Monell v. Dept. of Public Svcs. U.S. v. U.S. District Court

William Henry Hastie (1904-1976) William Henry Hastie 1904-1976 A National Lawyers Guild Luminary Judge Hastie was the first African-American confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench. He educated and mentored hundreds of young Black lawyers as a professor (1930-1946) and dean (1939-1946) at Howard University School of Law. He is honored with a fellowship program in his name at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He was one of the few lawyers of his generation, of any race, to practice law with a Doctor of Juridical Science (Harvard, 1932). William H. Hastie was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to William Henry and Roberta (Child) Hastie on November 17, 1904. He graduated from Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. (also Duke Ellington's alma mater). He was Phi Beta Kappa and first in his class (1925) at Amherst College. In 1933, FDR recruited "race relations advisers" from among highly-visible, bright, young African Americans in the law and the other professions. Hastie left his private practice to become assistant solicitor of the Department of the Interior. Until Hastie's appointment as a Federal magistrate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, that 90-percent Black territorial possession of the United States had never had a judge of African descent. His 1937 appointment also made him the first Black Federal magistrate in any jurisdiction. A decade later, Judge Hastie would be appointed the first African-American governor of the Virgin Islands (1946-1949). From 1941 to 1943, Judge Hastie served as civilian aide to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. He resigned his position to protest the military's Jim Crow segregation. In 1943, Judge Hastie was awarded the NAACP's prestigious Springarn Medal "for his distinguished career as jurist and as an uncompromising champion of equal justice." In 1944, Judge Hastie supported the position of the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, a notorious Jim Crow device to keep Black people from voting. President Truman named Judge Hastie to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. At the time, this was the highest judicial position attained by an African American. Judge Hastie served on the appellate court bench for twenty-one years. In 1968, he became chief judge of the Third Circuit.