This virtual event was the first annual lecture in the series. It took place on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00pm and was co-sponsored by SPIA. This event was not recorded or made available.

Event Date

4-28-2021

Abstract

Yale Law School's Cromwell Professor Stephen Carter served as the inaugural Judge Horace J. Johnson, Jr. Lecturer on Race, Law and Policy

Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1982. He is the author of 15 books, as well as six novels, including The Emperor of Ocean Park, which spent 11 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln, a fictional account of a trial of Lincoln in the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. Carter is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall at the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Spottswood W. Robinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Among the accolades Carter's work has received are the Louisville-Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction and the Paul M. Bator Award. He has also served on the Pulitzer Prize fiction jury.

With support from UGA's Presidential Task Force on Race, Ethnicity and Community, the School of Law and School of Public and International Affairs have established the Judge Horace J. Johnson, Jr. Lecture on Race, Law and Policy in honor of the late jurist, who was a trailblazer for the Black community in Georgia. Johnson was a pioneer throughout his life. He was one of five students who helped desegregate Newton County, Georgia, schools in the 1960s. He graduated from the UGA School of Law in 1982. After briefly working in Atlanta, Johnson became the first Black attorney to practice in his home county. In 2002, he became the first Black Superior Court judge to serve in the Alcovy Judicial Circuit when then-Gov. Roy Barnes appointed him to the post. He remained in this role until his death in July 2020.

Included in

Law and Race Commons

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