Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality

National Archives Museum
Online

Constance Baker Motley was the first Black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. The only Black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP’s Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown v. Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South. She was the first Black woman elected to the New York state senate, the first woman elected Manhattan Borough president, and the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary. In Civil Rights Queen, civil rights and legal historian Tomiko Brown-Nagin brings Motley to life, and explores some of the most profound judicial and societal changes made in 20th-century America. Joining the author in conversion will be Maria Goldverg, editor, Penguin Random House Publishing.