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- The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, or simply the Lawyers' Committee, is a civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Alabama Governor George Wallace had vowed to resist court-ordered desegregation of the University of Alabama. Voting rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated inside his home in Mississippi on June 11. These events galvanized private lawyers to call for officials to commit to the rule of law. These events also prompted President Kennedy to call for private lawyers to do more to defend the civil rights of Black citizens, with Evers' assassination amounting to the last straw. The organization's long-standing mission is to secure equal justice for all through the rule of law by enlisting the leadership of the private bar. While the Lawyers' Committee works to stop all civil rights violations, the majority of its work targets the inequities that primarily confront African Americans, and other people of color. When the Lawyers' Committee was created, its existence was a major change in how the bar and how local and state judiciaries were able to help oppressed racial minorities during the civil rights movement. The organization called on the private bar to bring its resources to bear on the major civil rights problems beleaguering the nation; some of its earliest leaders included Bernard G. Segal, Harrison Tweed, Lloyd Cutler, Cecil Burney, Berl Bernhard, and John Doyle. During a historic June 21, 1963 meeting at the White House, 244 lawyers filled the East Room of the White House. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to the lawyers about the discrimination he witnessed first-hand in the South and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy argued that lawyers had a unique role to play advancing civil rights for African Americans because of the oath that lawyers swore to uphold the constitution. At the end of the meeting, Bernard Segal and Harrison Tweed volunteered to lead the committee of lawyers, starting with those assembled at the White House. The organization has assisted with some major civil rights advancements over the years, including significant amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that were made in 1982; it has also had substantial impact to civil rights legislation, including Executive Order 11246—preventing employers from discriminating based on race—and a number of voting rights cases. Since its creation, the Lawyers' Committee has served as an expert on civil rights matters, often testifying before Congress and issuing public statements on pressing civil rights challenges. There are eight local affiliates of the Lawyers' Committee: Boston, Massachusetts (created in 1968); Chicago, Illinois (created in 1969); Denver, Colorado (created in 1978); Jackson, Mississippi (created in 1965); Los Angeles, California (created in 1970); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (created in 1969); San Francisco, California (created in 1968); and the District of Columbia (created in 1968). Each affiliate is independently funded and governed, and together with the national Lawyers' Committee, they work on both national and state policy issues. (en)
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