Transition: Constance Baker Motley

Newsweek, October, 2005

Constance Baker Motley, 84

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1946, Motley worked for the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund, fighting restrictions that barred blacks from living in white neighborhoods. And she would keep on fighting in landmark civil-rights causes: Brown v. Board of Education and James H. Meredith's admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962. She argued 10 cases before the Supreme Court, winning nine of them. Motley became the first woman to be Manhattan borough president and the first black woman to serve in the New York State Senate and, later, as a federal judge. Though her mother worked for the NAACP, Motley's drive could be traced to one insult: being banned from a beach at 15 for being black.

Newsweek U.S. Edition