2018 Wiley A. Branton Awards Dinner

Our 50th Anniversary celebration brought together those whose hard work has made the Committee a success – founders, Board members, pro bono attorneys, volunteers, clients and staff from the last five decades.

Throughout the evening attendees heard the stories of our clients, the men and women who stand up and demand what is right. We also recognized award recipients for their outstanding service towards civil rights, anti-poverty and equal justice advocacy.

READ: Marian Wright Edelman reflects on the lessons we can learn from Civil Rights icon Ruby Bridges.

Wiley A. Branton Awards Dinner
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
6:00 pm Reception  I   7:00 pm Program
Dessert reception to follow program
Marriott Marquis Washington
901 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC

 

The Wiley A. Branton Award
The Honorable Deval Patrick
Former Governor of Massachusetts

Wiley A. Branton was a tireless advocate for civil rights and equal justice throughout his entire career – as a private practitioner in Arkansas, a leader of federal agencies in Washington, and a Dean of the Howard University School of Law. The Wiley A. Branton Award is annually bestowed upon members of the legal community whose careers embody a deep and abiding commitment to civil rights and economic justice advocacy.

Dean Branton started his career in private practice in Arkansas in the 1950’s, representing African-American criminal defendants in often racially charged prosecutions. Working with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, he took on some of the most significant civil rights cases in the South, including the representation of the Freedom Riders in Mississippi, who were arrested for desegregating public transportation and public accommodations.

Among his most notable cases was the litigation that desegregated the Little Rock public schools. It was Dean Branton’s injunction that led to President Eisenhower calling out federal troops to escort African-American students to school. From 1962 to 1965, he led the Voter Education Project in Atlanta. During the three years he was at the helm, the project registered more than 600,000 African Americans to vote.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed Dean Branton to lead the President’s Council on Equal Opportunity and then to work on the implementation of the Civil Rights Act as special assistant to the United States Attorney General. In 1967, he became executive director of the United Planning Organization, the District of Columbia’s anti-poverty agency. Two years later, he directed the social action program of the Alliance for Labor Action.

From 1978 to 1983, Mr. Branton was dean of Howard University Law School. During his tenure at Howard, he dedicated himself to the training of the next generation of civil rights advocates.

Following Dean Branton’s death in 1988, his friend Justice Thurgood Marshall remembered him as a great man who “believed in people and believed in what was right.”

Wiley Branton was an inspiration to everyone who he had the privilege of knowing and working with him. He personified the legal profession’s ideal of pro bono service that is at the heart of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee’s mission

The Alfred McKenzie Award
CASA & Barry Farm Tenants and Allies Association

The Alfred McKenzie Award was established in 1994 to recognize Committee clients whose dedication and courage have produced civil rights victories of particular significance. It takes its name from a man whose efforts as a Committee plaintiff changed an institution.

During World War II, Alfred McKenzie left his entry-level position in Government Printing Office (GPO) to join the Army Air Corps, where he served with distinction as one of the fames Tuskegee Airmen. When he returned to the GPO in 1946, he was assigned to the same low-level position he held prior to his military service. He then began a career-long struggle to win equal treatment for himself and his fellow African-American GPO employees.

In 1972, represented by Committee staff and the firm of Hogan & Hartson, Mr. McKenzie initiated a class action lawsuit to challenge racial discrimination against African-American pressmen at the GPO. Fifteen years later, his determination led to a landmark victory that secured a record $2.4 million payment to hundreds of African-American workers and, more importantly, a fundamental restructuring of personnel policies that opened the door of equal opportunity to countless minority workers.

The Vincent E. Reed Award
Ruby Bridges

The Vincent E. Reed Award was first presented by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee in 2003. The award is given in the name of Dr. Vincent Reed, the distinguished educator whose encouragement and support were directly responsible for the Committee’s decision to establish its public education support programs.

Following his graduation from West Virginia State College and military service during the Korean War, Vincent Reed began his career as an educator in the DC Public Schools in 1956. Within several years, he was promoted from a teaching position to a series of important administrative posts in the school system, culminating in his appointment as DC School Superintendent in 1975. His appointment to this post came at a time when the local schools were experiencing enormous stress and public criticism. Dr. Reed’s charismatic leadership and the rigorous educational programs he championed helped immeasurably to restore public confidence in the city’s schools.

In 1978, Dr. Reed met with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee and encouraged our organization to seek law firm volunteers to serve as legal counsel for parent leaders at a dozen public schools in Southeast Washington. This initial effort became the basis for the Committee’s representation of Parents United for the DC Public Schools and the DC Public School Partnership Program, which now operates in more than 50 schools across the city.

Following his tenure as DC School Superintendent, Dr. Reed went on to serve as an Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education and as Vice President for Communications at the Washington Post Company.

The Rod Boggs Award
Elaine Gardner

Over a long and distinguished career, Rod Boggs has left an indelible mark on the civil rights and anti-poverty law landscape in our city and beyond. Rod’s work as the executive director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, and earlier as a staff attorney at the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, has extended nearly five decades beginning in 1969. He contributed to advances in virtually every area of civil rights law and raised the profile of pro bono practice in the legal profession.

Under Rod’s leadership, the Committee served as counsel or co-counsel in some of the most significant civil rights cases of the past 50 years. One of these was Runyon v. McCrary, a case that he helped argue in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, which successfully challenged the racially discriminatory admissions’ policy of a private nursery school. Another was the class action brought in 1993 on behalf of a group of uniformed Secret Service Agents denied service at a Denny’s restaurant while on active duty protecting President Clinton. The settlement of this case provided $17.5 million dollars of monetary and injunctive relief to 175,000 individual class members.

In recognition of his accomplishments, among other honors, Rod has received the Justice Potter Stewart Award from the Council for Court Excellence, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the DC Bar, and most recently the President’s Award from the Washington Council of Lawyers.

The overarching goal of Rod’s work has been to harness the resources of our city’s private bar and its leaders to help secure justice and equal opportunity for all who seek the protection of our civil rights laws. He has pursued this objective over a long career with infectious enthusiasm, an abiding sense of commitment to the Committee’s clients, and strong collaboration with his staff and law firm colleagues.

The Rod Boggs Award is given to a member of the legal profession who has made a sustained commitment to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, its clients and its values.

Wiley A. Branton was a tireless advocate for civil rights and equal justice throughout his entire career—as a private practitioner in Arkansas, a leader of federal agencies in Washington, and a Dean of the Howard University School of Law. The Wiley A. Branton Award is annually bestowed upon members of the legal community whose careers embody a deep and abiding commitment to civil rights and economic justice advocacy.

Dean Branton started his career in private practice in Arkansas in the 1950’s, representing African-American criminal defendants in often racially charged prosecutions. Working with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, he took on some of the most significant civil rights cases in the South, including the representation of the Freedom Riders in Mississippi, who were arrested for desegregating public transportation and public accommodations.

Among his most notable cases was the litigation that desegregated the Little Rock public schools. It was Dean Branton’s injunction that led to President Eisenhower calling out federal troops to escort African-American students to school. From 1962 to 1965, he led the Voter Education Project in Atlanta. During the three years he was at the helm, the project registered more than 600,000 African Americans to vote.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed Dean Branton to lead the President’s Council on Equal Opportunity and then to work on the implementation of the Civil Rights Act as special assistant to the United States Attorney General. In 1967, he became executive director of the United Planning Organization, the District of Columbia’s anti-poverty agency. Two years later, he directed the social action program of the Alliance for Labor Action.

From 1978 to 1983, Mr. Branton was dean of Howard University Law School. During his tenure at Howard, he dedicated himself to the training of the next generation of civil rights advocates.

Following Dean Branton’s death in 1988, his friend Justice Thurgood Marshall remembered him as a great man who “believed in people and believed in what was right.’’

Wiley Branton was an inspiration to everyone who had the privilege of knowing and working with him. He personified the legal profession’s ideal of pro bono service that is at the heart of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee’s missionThe Wiley A. Branton Award was first bestowed by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee in 1989. It takes its name from Wiley A. Branton, Sr., an extraordinary man whose life embodied civil rights advocacy of the highest order.

Wiley A. Branton Award Recipients

2017	Former Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. Speaker: Congressman John Lewis
2016	Roderic V.O. Boggs
2015	Theodore Howard John Relman
2014	James J. Sandman Nkechi Taifa
2013	Judge John Ferren Judge Ricardo Urbina
2012	Thomas Brunner Avis Buchanan Joseph Sellers
2011	Kim Keenan George Ruttinger
2010	Congressman John Conyers John C. Keeney
2009	Congressman John Lewis Benjamin F. Wilson Speaker: Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr.
2008 – 40th Anniversary	David J. Cynamon Leslie M. Turner
2007	Anastasia D. Kelly Thomas S. Williamson, Jr.
2006	Marc L. Fleischaker Roger Wilkins
2005	Judge Nathaniel R. Jones Roger E. Warin
2004	Stuart J. Land John A. Payton, Jr.
2003	Patricia M. Wald
2002	Janet Reno Dick Thornburgh
2001	David & Florence Isbell
2000	Peter Edelman Rev. John O. Peterson Speaker: Mayor Anthony Williams
1999	Drew S. Days Jane Lang
1998	No award presented
1997	Judge Charles Richey Speaker: First Lady Hillary Clinton
1996	Rev. James Macdonell William R. Tisdale
1995	Judge Aubrey A. Robinson
1994	Robert H. Kapp
1993	John E. Nolan, Jr. Vincent E. Reed
1992	Pedro Avilés Stephen Pollak Iris J. Toyer
1991	Roscoe N. Nix Joseph L. Rauh, Jr.
1990	Judge William B. Bryant Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer
1989	Robert L. Wald
1988	Distinguished Service Award: Judge Spottswood W. Robinson John W. Douglas
1987	Distinguished Service Award: Wiley A. Branton, Sr. Albert E. Arent