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Join us on Wednesday, May 27th as we celebrate and honor the commitment of our award winners and their organizations at our 2026 Wiley A. Branton Awards Luncheon!
The Wiley A. Branton Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs (WLC), recognizing extraordinary leadership and outstanding contributions to civil rights and equal justice.
In May, WLC will present the Wiley A. Branton Award to former career public servants of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Next year marks 70 years since the Civil Rights Division was established. On the eve of that anniversary, the WLC will – for the first time – give the Wiley A. Branton Award not to an individual but to a group of lawyers, reflecting the collective and often unseen public service that has advanced civil rights protections across decades of administrations of both parties.
The Civil Rights Division was created in 1957 under the leadership of President Dwight D. Eisenhower to help enforce federal civil rights laws. For generations, career public servants within the Division have carried out this work in a professional, fair, and apolitical manner. Recently, the Division has faced unprecedented departures, but these individuals have continued to stand up for the mission of the Division.
WLC invites you to join us in honoring these former public servants for their enduring commitment to the Constitution’s promise of equal justice.
To read more about the Wiley A. Branton Award, click here.
Forty years ago, Central American Solidarity and Assistance was founded as a nonprofit, working out of a church basement in Takoma Park, Maryland, to assist immigrants fleeing turmoil in Central America. The organization quickly grew into CASA, with more than 10,000 active members, supporting and advocating for a wide range of immigrants and later launching immigrant welcome centers in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Today, the organization is a national powerhouse, with over 189,000 lifetime members across 46 states and Puerto Rico.
In 2025, when Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a union sheet metal worker, father of three, and beloved CASA member, was unlawfully deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison (despite a 2019 immigration court order barring his deportation to El Salvador) CASA launched a national and international campaign to secure Kilmar’s freedom and fight for justice for his family.
CASA has partnered with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs (WLC) on several major immigrants’ rights cases over the years. Following the August 2025 federal takeover of the District of Columbia, CASA and other immigrants’ rights organizations joined WLC to sue the Department of Homeland Security for conducting illegal ICE arrests in D.C. In December 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction temporarily halting warrantless ICE arrests in DC. CASA and WLC have also gone to court to preserve Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans, Afghans, and Cameroonians and to ensure that they are not unlawfully deported to danger.
CASA’s power has always come from the organizers, workers, students, and parents who continue to show up to support immigrant justice. This year, the organization launched a new chapter with a new brand identity: We Are CASA. Under the leadership of new executive director George Escobar, this rebrand reflects its national reach and a renewed commitment to “people-power: the united force of our families, organizers, and neighbors.”
WLC is proud and honored to present the 2026 Alfred McKenzie Award to We Are CASA.
The Washington Lawyers’ Committee partners with the private bar and nonprofits to provide legal assistance to individuals and communities who experience violations of their civil rights. Each year, area lawyers and law firms contribute thousands of hours of their time on cases and projects. During the Wiley A. Branton Awards Luncheon, the Committee recognizes these important law firm and advocacy organization partnerships through Outstanding Achievement Awards.
Please contact Melissa Nussbaum, Director of Development, at (202) 319-1070 or [email protected] for more information.
Equality Sponsor ($125,000)
Freedom Sponsor ($100,000)
Justice Sponsor ($75,000)
Integrity Sponsor ($50,000)
Impact Sponsor ($35,000)
Champion Sponsor ($15,000)
Support Sponsor ($5,000)
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 mission. The 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.
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