austinbar.org FEBRUARY 2021 | VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1
Celebrating Our History BY AYEOLA WILLIAMS “Everything that I’ve done, I’ve been blessed by the people who have come before me.” – Pflugerville Councilmember Rudy Metayer
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lack history is American history. However, unlike other Americans, Black Americans have experienced unique structural and societal barriers to success. Black Americans suffered, among other things, chattel slavery; racial violence; Jim Crow laws; segregation; redlining practices; over-policing; discriminatory practices in education, housing, criminal justice, and employment; and inadequate and unequal access to quality healthcare. These policies were not accidental. They were intentional and had the effect of decimating Black communities. Among the Black Americans who overcame, a small number have been able to achieve remarkable success—against all odds. Each February at the Andrea Pair Bryant Legacy Luncheon, the Austin Black Lawyers Association (ABLA) celebrates the legacy of Black attorneys who have made significant contributions to the Black community, the Austin legal community, and to ABLA. In years past, the Legacy Luncheon was held at the Chateau Bellevue
in downtown Austin and attended by members of the judiciary, council members, and members and friends of ABLA. This February, while we cannot gather, let us still reflect and honor some of the local trailblazers who broke down barriers in the Austin legal community. • In 1883, 38 years after Texas was annexed to the United States, John N. Johnson became the first Black attorney in Austin as well as the first Black admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Texas. Johnson is remembered in history as a social justice warrior, filing what may have been the earliest civil rights lawsuits in Texas. • Because of the post-Reconstruction backlash and Jim Crow laws, for the next two or so generations Black Americans were largely excluded from the legal apprenticeship system, legal academic training programs, and legal and judgeship opportunities. According to the late Marquette University Law School Professor J. Gordon Hylton, there were
TOP: Rev. and Mrs. Joseph C. Parker, Jr. and Judge (ret.) and Mrs. Wilford Flowers. BOTTOM LEFT: Judge Lora Livingston being presented with the Joseph C. Parker, Jr. Diversity Award by Judge Eric Shepperd in 2016. BOTTOM RIGHT: Judge Wilford Flowers (ret.) with Austin Bar Executive Director DeLaine Ward.
only 20 Black lawyers in the entire state of Texas in 1930.1 • In 1969, Judge Harriet Murphy (ret.) graduated from the University of Texas School of Law—still the only Black student in her class despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), overturning the separate but equal doctrine in public education by requiring graduate and profession-
al schools to admit Black students. Murphy went on to become the first Black female lawyer appointed to a regular judgeship in Texas (1973) and served on the City of Austin Municipal Court for 20 years. • Recipient of the 2011 Austin Bar Association’s Distinguished Lawyer Award, Judge Wilford Flowers (ret.)—Port Arthur born and UT Law educated continued on page 8
