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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. Dies
A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. was a distinguished American and a member of Peoples Baptist Church in Boston where Wesley A. Roberts is the pastor. Higginbotham was a former chief judge of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. He was a deeply respected jurist, teacher and leader in the civil rights movement.
A funeral service was held at the church following Higginbotham’s death. At the service, tributes by President Clinton and South African President Nelson Mandela were read. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, NAACP President, Kweisi Mfume, and Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 ignited the civil rights movement, attended the service.
One of Higginbotham’s former students, Stephanie Franklin-Suber, Philadelphia’s city solicitor, said of him, "To us he was a living legend, who traveled the corridors of history in search of social justice and human rights. To us he was a force of nature… As is fitting, he finally sits on the high court of history." Stories and laughter at the service highlighted the values of this giant of a man.
After the service Rosa Parks commented on Higginbotham, "I think he really had a great idea that we are all equal people."
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(Retired)
Born: Trenton, New Jersey-February 25, 1928.
Education: Antioch College (B.A. 1949); Yale Law School (J.D. 1952).
Judge Higginbotham was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Carter on October 13, 1997 after receiving the American Bar Association's highest judicial rating-"exceptionally well-qualified."
A. Leon Higginbotham was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1928. Higginbotham's mother, Emma Lee, was a maid, and his father worked as a factory worker. Growing up in Trenton, Higginbotham attended the Ewing Park Grammar School, an understaffed four-room segregated school. He later became the first Ewing Park student in 40 years to move on to the academic track at Trenton's segregated junior high school.
At the age of 16, Higginbotham began his undergraduate studies at Purdue University, but obtained his degree from Antioch College. Indeed, he often cites an experience during his freshman year at Purdue in 1944 as the principal motivation for his career in the law. He and 11 other black students were assigned to live off-campus in a crowded, unheated attic of a house. After one night during which the temperatures fell to nearly zero degrees, Higginbotham went to visit the university president, Edward Charles Elliott, to request that he and his fellow black students be allowed to live in a section of the dormitory, which was warm. In describing the impact of that meeting with President Elliott, Judge Higginbotham said:
Now if President Elliott had talked with me sympathetically, explaining his own impotence to change things but his willingness to take up the problem, perhaps to make a study, I might not have felt as I did. If he had communicated to me with some kind word or gesture, or even a sigh, that I had caused him to review his own commitment to things as they were, I might have felt that I had won a small victory, that I could go back and sleep in that attic.
But he looked me in the eye, and he said, "Higginbotham, the law doesn't require us to let colored students in the dorm, we will never do it, and you either accept things as they are or leave the university immediately."
I am a lawyer today because of Dr. Elliott's negative motivation. I felt that I could not go into engineering, that I had to try to challenge the system.
Higginbotham promptly transferred to Antioch College, graduating in 1949. In 1952, he received his law degree from Yale Law School.
After graduating from Yale, Higginbotham began his professional career as a Law Clerk to Justice Curtis Bok of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania (1952-1953). In 1953, he became a Philadelphia County Assistant District Attorney. From 1954 to 1962, Judge Higginbotham was a founding partner with the law firm of Norris, Green, Harris & Higginbotham. During the same period, he was also Special Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1956-1962) and Special Hearing Officer (conscientious objector matters) for the United States Department of Justice (1960-1962).
On September 25, 1962, Judge Higginbotham was nominated for a seven year term to the Federal Trade Commission. As a result of this appointment, Judge Higginbotham became the first African American to be a member at the Commission level to a federal regulatory agency, and the youngest person to be named a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
Judge Higginbotham was first appointed to the federal bench on January 6, 1964, by President Johnson. He was the first African American to serve as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was elevated to the Third Circuit in 1977. In 1989, Judge Higginbotham became Chief Judge of the Third Circuit. He stepped down from the bench on March 5, 1993.
In 1994, Judge Higginbotham was appointed the first Public Service Professor of Jurisprudence at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also currently Of Counsel to the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison at their New York and Washington, D.C. offices.
Over the course of his illustrious career, Judge Higginbotham has received more than 50 local, regional and national honors, some of which include being named One of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Men In America from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (other recipients have included the late President John F. Kennedy, the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Leonard Bernstein, Orson Wells and Dr. Tom Dooley), Outstanding Young Man in Government, National Arthur S. Flemming Award, and the National Human Relations Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Inc.
Notably, in September of 1995, Judge Higginbotham was among 12 Americans who were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the nation's highest civilian honor. The other honorees included noted historian John Hope Franklin and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. In 1996, the NAACP presented Higginbotham with its Spingarn Medal for his outstanding achievements, putting him in the ranks of former recipients Martin Luther King, Jr., Colin Powell, Rosa Parks and Langston Hughes.
In addition to his public service, Judge Higginbotham has taught extensively, serving as a Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Harvard Law School, Stanford University Law School, University of Michigan and Yale University. He is also well known as a prolific writer, having published more than 50 articles in major scholarly journals. One of Judge Higginbotham's most well known and controversial articles was an open letter to the then-recently confirmed Justice Clarence Thomas, which was published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. In that letter, Judge Higginbotham commented on the history of discrimination in this country and urged Justice Thomas to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Justice Thurgood Marshall. In addition, Higginbotham is the author of two well regarded books dealing with the interrelationship between the law and race in America: In the Matter of Color-Race and American Legal process: The Colonial Period (Oxford University Press, 1978) and Shades of Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1996).
After more than 29 distinguished years on the federal bench, Higginbotham has said that he left the court to "be able to focus on . . . the most significant issues confronting America." He has done just that-teaching, writing, serving as Special Counsel to the Congressional Black Caucus on redistricting cases, helping usher in free elections in South Africa, and litigating a host of pro bono matters relating to children and minorities.
Judge Leon Higginbotham with President Lyndon Johnson
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Medal History
