Constance Baker Motley | |
|---|---|
 Motley in 1964 | |
| Senior Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York | |
| In office September 30, 1986 – September 28, 2005 | |
| Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York | |
| In office May 31, 1982 – September 30, 1986 | |
| Preceded by | Lloyd Francis MacMahon |
| Succeeded by | Charles L. Brieant |
| Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York | |
| In office August 30, 1966 – September 30, 1986 | |
| Appointed by | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Archie Owen Dawson |
| Succeeded by | Kimba Wood |
| Borough President ofManhattan | |
| In office February 23, 1965 – August 30, 1966 | |
| Preceded by | Edward R. Dudley |
| Succeeded by | Percy Sutton |
| Member of theNew York Senate from the 21st district | |
| In office February 4, 1964 – February 23, 1965 | |
| Preceded by | James Lopez Watson |
| Succeeded by | Jeremiah B. Bloom |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Constance Baker (1921-09-14)September 14, 1921 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | September 28, 2005(2005-09-28) (aged 84) New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Education | |
Constance Baker Motley (néeBaker; September 14, 1921 – September 28, 2005) was an American jurist and politician who served as a Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
A key strategist of thecivil rights movement, she wasstate senator, andBorough President ofManhattan in New York City before becoming aUnited States federal judge.[1][2] She obtained a role with theNAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as a staff attorney in 1946 after receiving her law degree, and continued her work with the organization for more than twenty years.[3]
She was the first Black woman to argue at the Supreme Court[4] and argued 10 landmark civil rights cases, winning nine. She was a law clerk toThurgood Marshall, aiding him in the caseBrown v. Board of Education.[5]
Motley was also the firstCaribbean-American woman appointed to the federal judiciary, serving as aUnited States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.[2]
In 1965, Motley was elected President of the Borough ofManhattan to fill a one-year vacancy. She was the first woman to hold the office.[6]As president, she authored a revitalization plan forHarlem andEast Harlem, successfully fighting for $700,000 to improve these and other underserved areas of the city.[7]
Constance Baker was born on September 14, 1921, inNew Haven,Connecticut, the ninth of twelve children.[8] Her parents, Rachel Huggins and McCullough Alva Baker,[9] were immigrants from the Caribbean IslandNevis. Before coming to the United States, Rachel worked as a seamstress and a teacher while McCullough worked as a cobbler.[10] After they immigrated, her mother served as adomestic worker, and her father worked as achef for different Yale University student societies, including the secret societySkull and Bones.[11] Motley describes her parents' education as being equivalent "to the tenth grade in the States".[10] Her mother, Rachel Baker, served as a community activist. She founded the New Haven NAACP.[12]
At 15, she read works byJames Weldon Johnson andW.E.B. DuBois, which inspired her interest in Black history.[13] She met a minister who taught classes in Black history that focused her attention on civil rights and the underrepresentation of black lawyers.[13]
While in high school, Motley became president of the New Haven Negro Youth Council and was secretary of the New Haven Adult Community Council. In 1939, she graduated with honors fromHillhouse High School. Although she had already formed a desire to practice law, Motley lacked the means to attend college, and instead went to work for theNational Youth Administration. She also continued her involvement in community activities. Through this work she encountered local businessman and philanthropist Clarence W. Blakeslee, who, after hearing Motley speak at a New Haven community center, offered to pay for her education. With his financial help, she started college atFisk University, ahistorically black college inNashville,Tennessee, but after one year, she transferred toNew York University, where she graduated with aBachelor of Arts degree ineconomics in 1943. She received herBachelor of Laws in 1946 fromColumbia Law School.[9]
In October 1945, during her second year at Columbia Law School, futureUnited States Supreme Court Associate JusticeThurgood Marshall hired her as alaw clerk. She was assigned to work oncourt martial cases that were filed afterWorld War II.[9]
Motley is widely acknowledged as a major figure in the Civil Rights Movement, especially its legal battles.[14] After graduating from Columbia's Law School in 1946, she was hired by theNAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) as a civil rights lawyer. As the fund's first female attorney, she became Associate Counsel to the LDF, making her a lead trial attorney in a number of early and significant civil rights cases including representingMartin Luther King Jr., theFreedom Riders, and the Birmingham Children Marchers.[15] She visited Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while he sat in jail, as well as spent a night with civil rights activistMedgar Evers under armed guard.[14][11]
In 1950, she wrote the original complaint in the case ofBrown v. Board of Education. The first African-American woman ever to argue a case before theU.S. Supreme Court, inMeredith v. Fair she wonJames Meredith's effort to be the first black student to attend theUniversity of Mississippi in 1962. Motley was successful in nine of the ten cases she argued before the Supreme Court. The tenth decision, regarding jury composition, was eventually overturned in her favor. She was otherwise a key legal strategist in the civil rights movement, helping to desegregateSouthern schools, buses, and lunch counters.[16][17]
Beyond her work with LDF, Motley continued her civil rights work as an elected official. In 1964, she was elected to the New York State Senate and devoted much of her time to advocate for housing equality for majority-Black andLatino, low-income tenants. She also endorsed urban renewal projects and looked to improve the neighborhoods in New York City that needed aid.[15]
Motley was elected on February 4, 1964, to theNew York State Senate (21st district), to fill the vacancy caused by the election ofJames Lopez Watson to theNew York City Civil Court.[18] She was the firstAfrican American woman to sit in the State Senate. She took her seat in the174th New York State Legislature, was re-elected in November 1964 to the175th New York State Legislature, and resigned her seat when she was chosen as the first woman asManhattanBorough President on February 23, 1965, after her predecessor was elected to a state judicial position.[19] In November 1965, she was elected to a full four-year term.J. Raymond Jones was influential in helping her reach these positions.[20]
Motley was nominated by PresidentLyndon B. Johnson on January 26, 1966, to a seat on theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by JudgeArchie Owen Dawson.[21] SenatorJames Eastland of Mississippi delayed her confirmation process for seven months. Eastland was in opposition to her past desegregation work includingBrown v. Board of Education andMeredith v. Fair. He used his influence as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to disrupt Motley's nomination, and went as far as accusing her of being a member of the Communist Party.[15] Despite opposition, she was confirmed by theUnited States Senate on August 30, 1966, and received her commission the same day, becoming the first African American female federal judge.[22] She served as Chief Judge from 1982 to 1986. She assumedsenior status on September 30, 1986. Her service terminated on September 28, 2005, due to her death in New York City.[21]
Motley was the presiding judge on the case ofBlank v. Sullivan & Cromwell, a landmark case for women lawyers. InBlank, the plaintiffs accused a law firm of sex discrimination.[23] Due to the nature of this case and Motley's gender and race, there were calls for her to withdraw from the case assuming she would be biased. In response, she pointed to her history of impartial decisions, sometimes ruling against the plaintiff in discrimination cases.[15]
InBelknap v. Leary, 427 F.2d 496 (2d Cir. 1970), archived fromthe original on July 28, 2020., another highly publicized case, Motley admonished the New York City police for not providing Vietnam war protesters with adequate protection against violence in the streets.[24]
Motley ruled against the plaintiff in the case ofMullarkey v. Borglum in 1970. This case involved female tenants in New York City arguing that their male landlord was violating their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The defendants cited the landlord's overreach of power but failed to detail the landlord's legal failings. Motley ruled in favor of the defendant, rejecting the plaintiffs' claim of sex discrimination and going against her former advocacy for tenants during her time in the New York State Senate.[15]
Motley handed down a breakthrough decision for women in sports reporting in 1978, when she ruled that a female reporter must be allowed into aMajor League Baseball locker room.[25] InLudtke v. Kuhn,Melissa Ludtke filed a lawsuit against Bowie Kuhn, the Major League Baseball Commissioner, The American League President Leland MacPhail, and three New York City officials over theNew York Yankees gendered policy forbidding female sports reporters from entering the Yankees locker room.[26]
Beyond these landmark cases, Motley’s impact on the legal field extends to her Supreme Court advocacy, where she argued ten cases before the highest court, winning nine of them. Her legal career remains a subject of study and public interest.
Motley received aCandace Award for Distinguished Service from theNational Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1984.[27]
In 1993, she was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.[14]
In 2000,Harvard University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws.[28]
In 2001, PresidentBill Clinton awarded her thePresidential Citizens Medal.[8]
The NAACP awarded her theSpingarn Medal, the organization's highest honor, in 2003.[13] Motley was a prominent honorary member ofAlpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
In 2006, Motley posthumously received theCongressional Gold Medal from Congress for all of her accomplishments during her lifetime.[29]
In 2011, she was honored posthumously with the 13th Ford Freedom Award for her accomplishments that helped disadvantaged communities.[30]
In 2016, theChester, Connecticut Land Trust purchased land across from her former second home. The parcel was eventually dedicated as the "Judge Constance Baker Motley Preserve". A small kiosk, picnic area, and trail are available to the public.[31]
On October 6, 2019, her property located inChester, Connecticut, was designated a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. The site is just one of 140 that honor African-Americans throughout the state.[32]
In 2021, theNew York City Parks Department renamed the 54th Street Recreation Center in honor of Motley.[33]
TheHarlem Historical Society authored a street co-naming resolution honoring Motley for her service as an American civil rights activist, lawyer, judge, state senator, and Harlem resident. The portion of Edgecombe Avenue between 159th and 160th streets was co-named "Constance Baker Motley Place".[34]
Constance Baker married Joel Motley Jr., a real estate and insurance broker, in 1946 at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church inNew Haven,Connecticut. They lived in Harlem, New York City and maintained a second home inChester, Connecticut from 1965 until her death in 2005.[34][35]
Baker and Motley were married for 59 years, until her death ofcongestive heart failure on September 28, 2005, fourteen days after her 84th birthday, atNYU Downtown Hospital in New York City.[14] Her funeral was held at theConnecticut church where she had been married; a public memorial service was held atRiverside Church inManhattan.
She left one son, Joel Wilson Motley III, co-chairman ofHuman Rights Watch, and three grandchildren.[36] During the early twenty-first century, Motley became a part of the Just The Beginning Foundation, a foundation dedicated to preserving African American judges who improve the African American community through their work.
During her time as a federal judge for the Southern District of New York, Motley made efforts to reach out to other African-American women in her position.[37] One of the women she reached out to was JudgeAnne Elise Thompson who received a personal note from Motley on the day she was appointed to be a judge for the District of New Jersey.[37]
In 2005, the University of Pennsylvania Law School's American Constitution Society (ACS) student chapter began to host National Writing Competitions annually in honor of Constance Baker Motley.[38]
With her work onLudtke v. Kuhn, Motley became a pivotal figure to Melissa Ludtke. Ludtke published an article in 2018 praising the work that Motley accomplished throughout her life despite the discrimination she experienced.[39]
Judith Heumann, co-founder of the World Institute on Disability, credits Motley with her becoming the first licensed teacher in the state of New York who used a wheelchair.[40]
U.S. Vice PresidentKamala Harris explicitly cites Motley's influence on her own political and law career on her campaign page.[41]
Federal JudgeKetanji Brown Jackson cited Motley as an influence on her own career in a speech accepting PresidentJoe Biden's nomination to become anassociate justice of theSupreme Court. Jackson and Motley share the same birthday.[42]
An award-winning biographical documentary,Justice is a Black Woman: The Life and Work of Constance Baker Motley, was broadcast onConnecticut Public Television in 2012. A documentary short,The Trials of Constance Baker Motley, premiered at theTribeca Film Festival on April 19, 2015.[43]
In 2022,Civil Rights Queen, an "immersive" biography of Motley, was published.[44][45]
On January 31, 2024, theUnited States Postal Service issued acommemorative postage stamp to honor Motley. The first day of issue ceremony took place at the Constance Baker Motley Recreation Center in New York City and was presided over by the HonorableAnton Hajjar, member of the U.S. Postal Service Board.[46] This stamp was the 47th in the Black Heritage series of U.S. postage stamps.[47]
This article incorporates text available under theCC BY 3.0 license.| New York State Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of theNew York Senate from the 21st district 1964–1965 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Borough President ofManhattan 1965–1966 | Succeeded by |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by | Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York 1966–1986 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chief Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York 1982–1986 | Succeeded by |
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