James Madison Nabrit Jr. (September 7, 1900 – December 27, 1997) was a prominent American civil rights attorney who won several important arguments before the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, served as president of

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

for much of the 1960s, and was appointed Deputy Ambassador to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

by President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

. His brother,

Samuel M. Nabrit Samuel Milton Nabrit (February 21, 1905 – December 30, 2003) was an American marine biologist. He was the first African American to be awarded a doctoral degree from Brown University, the first Morehouse College graduate to earn a Ph.D. and t ...

, was appointed to the

U.S. Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...

. His son,

James Nabrit III James Madison Nabrit III (June 11, 1932 – March 22, 2013) was an African American civil rights attorney who won several important decisions before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also a long-time attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. ...

, was also a civil rights attorney.

Early life and career

James Nabrit Jr. was born in Georgia on September 7, 1900, to James Nabrit Sr., a Baptist minister and baker, and Gertrude Augusta West. Reverend James M. Nabrit Sr., a son of former slaves, taught at Central City College, became President of the American Baptist Institute in Nashville, and Secretary of the National Baptist Convention. Himself a learned college graduate, who taught some of his children Latin, Greek and physics, James M. Nabrit Sr. was the father of eight college graduates, and seven who earned advanced degrees. Nabrit Jr. graduated from

Morehouse College , mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made") , type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college , academic_affiliations ...

in 1923 and from

Northwestern University Law School Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a Private university, private research university. It is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law has been ranked among the top 14, ...

in 1927. Nabrit Jr. married Norma Walton in 1924—they would remain married until her death in 1988—and taught at colleges in Louisiana and Arkansas from 1927 to 1930. From 1930 to 1936 he practiced law in Houston, Texas. Nabrit began teaching law at

in 1936 and served as dean of Howard's

law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

from 1958 to 1960 and president of the university from 1960 to 1969. In 1938 he started the first formal civil rights law course in the United States.

Civil rights cases

Beginning in the 1940s and through the 1950s, Nabrit handled a number of civil rights cases for the

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...

, working with prominent attorneys such as

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

, later a Supreme Court justice. Notably, Nabrit argued ''

Bolling v. Sharpe ''Bolling v. Sharpe'', 347 U.S. 497 (1954), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court Legal case, case in which the Court held that the Constitution proh ...

'', a companion case of ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...

''.

President of Howard and later life

Nabrit served as president of

from 1960 to 1965. From 1965 to 1967 he served as Deputy

U.S. Ambassador Ambassadors of the United States are persons nominated by the President of the United States, president to serve as the country's diplomat, diplomatic representatives to foreign nations, international organizations, and as Ambassador-at-large, ...

to the

—the first African American hold this position."Nabrit, James Madison Jr.", ''Civil Rights: An A–Z Reference of the Movement that Changed America'' (abridged from ''

Encyclopedia Africana ''Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience'' edited by Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah (Basic Civitas Books 1999, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2005, ) is a compendium of Africana studies including Afr ...

''), ed.

Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah wa ...

and

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Ame ...

, Philadelphia: Running Press, 2004, pp. 297–298. He returned to the presidency of Howard from 1968 to 1969, stepping down under pressure from the

American Association of University Professors The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership includes over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations. The AAUP's stated mission is ...

after he expelled 18 disruptive students. Nabrit said that he had simply been waiting for the university to choose a successor. He died in Washington, D.C., on December 27, 1997, at the age of 97. He was survived by his only son,

References

Biographies

* Smalls, F. Romall, Kenneth T. Jackson, (editor). "James Madison Nabrit Jr." In ''The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 5''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons/Gale Group 2002: 413-414 * ''James Nabrit Jr., Civil Rights Lawyer and Former President of Howard''. In ''JET'' Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 8 (Jan. 19, 1998, page 18)

External links

Howard University biography of Nabrit Jr.
* ttp://library.gwu.edu/dcaap-fa/dcaap0054.xml James Nabrit Jr. Archival Papers housed at the Moorland Spingarn Research Center {{DEFAULTSORT:Nabrit, James Jr. Nabrit Jr. James Nabrit Jr. James Nabrit Jr. James Nabrit Jr. James Nabrit Jr. James Nabrit Jr. James American civil rights lawyers 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century African-American lawyers