Julius Levonne Chambers (1984–1993)
Julius Chambers was the third Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), serving from 1984 to 1993. One of this country’s great civil rights lawyers and leaders, he devoted his entire adult life to civil rights law. He died in 2013.
His dedication to equality and justice was shaped by his formative experiences as a boy in segregated North Carolina, in particular by his father’s experiences with discrimination. He was a brilliant law student at the University of North Carolina School of Law, where his reputation first caught the attention of then-LDF Director-Counsel, Thurgood Marshall. He graduated first in his class from UNC School of Law and was the first Black editor-in-chief of the law review. While teaching at Columbia Law School, he obtained a Master of Laws degree.
A young Julius Chambers (center) conducting an interview.
Chambers was one of the first two LDF scholarship recipients. The other was Marian Wright Edelman, who later founded the Children’s Defense Fund. Chambers was also LDF’s first Legal Fellow. This began his lifelong association with LDF, where he worked as an intern and lawyer, cooperating attorney, board member and board chair, and, finally, as Director-Counsel, a position he held from 1984 to 1993.
In 1993, Chambers left LDF to become Chancellor at North Carolina Central University, his alma mater. He remained Chancellor until he retired in 2001, when he rejoined the firm of Ferguson, Stein, & Chambers.
The law offices of Chambers, Stein, Ferguson, and Lanning.
Chambers was a founding member of Ferguson, Stein, & Chambers, the first integrated law firm in North Carolina. The firm became a model for civil rights law firm practice in the private bar. Over his years in practice at the firm, and later at LDF, Chambers litigated and argued landmark civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971, school desegregation); Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986, voting rights); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971, employment discrimination); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405 (1975, employment discrimination); Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899 (1996, redistricting); and many others.
Chambers was known for his sharp mind, relentless focus on the law as a means of advancing civil rights, understated sense of humor, and unflappable demeanor. He was a man of tremendous courage. His home and his car were firebombed on separate occasions in 1965, and his office was burned to the ground in 1971, during the height of some of his most contentious civil rights litigation in North Carolina. When he spoke of these events, Chambers was typically matter of fact, insisting always that you “just keep fighting.”
Julius Chambers walks through his firebombed office in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Chambers worked alongside other great litigators and racial justice advocates—including Thurgood Marshall, Jack Greenberg, Constance Baker Motley, and Robert Carter—and he formed the connective tissue with the next generation of civil rights lawyers, many of whom he personally hired at LDF.
Read more about Chambers’ extraordinary life:
Julius Chambers, a Fighter for Civil Rights, Dies at 76
Civil Rights Leader Julius Chambers Fought Through Courts
Julius Chambers: A Remembrance and Legacy of a Civil Rights Icon