Law & Courts Obituary

Obituary

By Corey Mitchell — October 25, 2016 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Jack Greenberg, a civil rights lawyer who helped litigate the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, has died. He was 91.

Jack Greenberg

A member of Thurgood Marshall’s inner circle at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Greenberg worked on a number of high-profile civil rights cases, including Brown, which led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision overturning racially segregated systems of public education.

Greenberg, who was in his 20s when he helped argue cases that reached the high court, was the last living lawyer involved in the Brown case.

His most significant contribution came in Delaware with Gebhart v. Belton, in which he argued that black children in the state had the right to attend the all-white schools in their neighborhoods. A judge ruled that the black schools were offering far less to their students than the white schools were to theirs. But the decision did not apply broadly throughout Delaware.

The Supreme Court combined that case with similar ones from Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia into what is known as Brown v. Board, the Kansas suit.

When Marshall left the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1961 to serve as a federal appeals judge—and later, a Supreme Court justice—he handpicked Greenberg, who was white, as director of the organization, which he led for 23 years.

Greenberg did not see himself as an improbable choice to lead a national legal campaign against race-based segregation and discrimination.

“The question of race never really entered into it. It was a matter of human liberty. It was the principles that were involved,” he said in Richard Kluger’s Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality.

A version of this article appeared in the October 26, 2016 edition of Education Week as Obituary

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts Wisconsin Teachers Sue to Restore Collective Bargaining Rights
The lawsuit takes fresh aim at a 2011 law that severely restricted bargaining, and has survived several legal challenges since.
6 min read
Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) vice president Betsy Kippers leads a chant during a rally to protest Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill, at the Brown County Courthouse in downtown Green Bay on February 16, 2011.
Betsy Kippers, vice president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, leads a chant during a rally to protest Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, at the Brown County Courthouse in downtown Green Bay on February 16, 2011.
H. Marc Larson/The Green Bay Press-Gazette via AP
Law & Courts What Sandra Day O'Connor Did to Shape School Law and Civics Education
O'Connor wrote influential opinions on affirmative action, Title IX, and other education issues. Then she tirelessly worked on civics.
10 min read
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor listens as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pays tribute to O'Connor's advocacy work on behalf of civic education, impact on female judges and justice for women and girls worldwide at the Seneca Women Global Leadership Forum at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, on April 15, 2015 in Washington.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor listens to a tribute to her advocacy work on behalf of civics education and women's role in the legal profession at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, on April 15, 2015, in Washington.
Kevin Wolf/Invision for Seneca Women via AP Images
Law & Courts U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Major Gun Case With School Safety in Backdrop
The principle that guns may be barred from schools may bolster a federal law restricting firearm possession by domestic abusers.
6 min read
Gun safety and domestic violence prevention organizations gather outside of the Supreme Court before oral arguments are heard in United States v. Rahimi on Nov. 7, 2023, in Washington.
Gun safety and domestic violence prevention organizations gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court before oral arguments are heard in <i>United States</i> v. <i>Rahimi</i> on Nov. 7, 2023, in Washington.
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
Law & Courts What the Supreme Court Had to Say About School Board Members Blocking Constituents
The justices take up a case involving school board members who blocked some constituents from posting comments on public social media pages.
7 min read
The sun rises behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Nov. 10, 2020.
The sun rises behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Nov. 10, 2020.
Alex Brandon/AP