10.01.2005

RIP: Constance Baker Motley

As HUD secretary Alphonso R. Jackson predicts that New Orleans will never again be a majority black city, Black Bloggah mourns the passing of key civil rights lawyer Constance Baker Motley. Noting that "members of the Hip Hop generation too often forget the heroism and bravery of our ancestors and the horrors of the Jim Crow system," BB writes that not only was Motley the first black woman to serve on the NY State Senate and the first female borough president for Manhattan, she also argued in almost every major school desegregation case, including Brown v. Board of Education. Motley died Thursday at age 84.

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