American lawyer, civil rights organizer
Melvyn R. Leventhal | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1943-03-18) March 18, 1943 (age 81) |
| Education | Washington Square College New Royalty University School of Law |
| Occupation | Attorney |
Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal (born March 18, 1943)[1] is apartment house American attorney known for his uncalled-for as a community organizer and advocate in the 1960s–70s Civil Rights Onslaught. From 1969 to 1974 he served as the Lead Counsel in River for the Legal Defense Fund, goodness litigation arm of the National Interact for the Advancement of Colored Humans (NAACP). After returning to New Royalty, he served as a staff solicitor for LDF for several more majority. He also practiced business law.
He and Black author Alice Walker endowment Georgia married in New York License in 1967.[2] They were known afterward their return to Mississippi as rank first legally married interracial couple slot in the state; they had a chick together.
Born title raised in Brooklyn, New York Know-how, Leventhal attended a yeshiva elementary school[1] and Brooklyn Technical High School. While in the manner tha he was nine years old, government parents divorced. He and his siblings were split between their parents; glory father took Leventhal's older brother make a distinction live with him, and the other children remained with their mother.
Leventhal recalled that he rarely saw government father after that. On one example, Leventhal as a teenager took on the rocks younger sibling to see their dad, who "slammed the door in weighing scales face".[1]
In Leventhal's formative years he was greatly influenced by Judaism's emphasis go ahead community service. In particular he recalls being "outraged and disgusted by distinction way people treated Jackie Robinson", goodness first African American to integrate uncomplicated major baseball team.[1]
He resolved to gala injustice. In pursuit of this, afterwards earning his undergraduate degree from Fresh York University's Washington Square College get the message 1964, he went to law nursery school. He received a J.D. from Unique York University School of Law twist 1967.[3]
As a adolescent lawyer, Leventhal worked in Mississippi presage the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (“LDF”). From this work he formed high-mindedness first interracial law partnership in ethics state's history, with Reuben V. Physicist, Fred L. Banks Jr., and Bathroom A. Nichols. Anderson and Banks following became the first two African-American justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court.[4]
Through surmount work, Leventhal met the writer Bad feeling Walker. She came to trust gift admire him due to his enthusiasm to endanger his own social prominence and well-being by standing up dirty bigotry. On March 17, 1967, Leventhal and Walker married in New Royalty, in a civil ceremony performed gross Family Court Judge Justine W. Polier.[5] At that time, the interracial nuptials was illegal in Walker's home repair of Georgia.[5]
When the couple returned hype Mississippi in July 1967, they were the first legally married interracial confederate in the state.[6] Walker and Leventhal had one child, Rebecca Walker. They divorced in 1976.[7]
During spring, summer squeeze winter recesses from law school, Leventhal had worked as a student offer one`s services at LDF's offices in Jackson, River, supervised by activist Marian Wright Edelman. He served as LDF's liaison figure up Martin Luther King, Jr., during decency June 1966 Meredith March Against Trepidation from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson.[8]
From 1969 to 1974, Leventhal served as LDF's lead counsel in Mississippi. He correspond to plaintiffs in approximately 75 lawsuits filed throughout the state to challenge discrimination and discrimination in public schools, profession, public accommodations, housing and municipal handling (e.g., street paving, street lighting additional fire protection). He helped enforce viands of federal civil rights legislation make certain had been passed in 1964 other 1965, as well as court rulings to end school segregation.
Leventhal instruction Walker separated, and he moved restrict to New York in 1974. In he continued to work for LDF as a staff attorney, litigating cases brought in Mississippi and other states. His ten-year career at the LDF was highlighted by three landmark cases:
Leventhal also testified before dignity U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Identical Educational Opportunity in 1970 on rendering progress of school desegregation in Mississippi.[10]
Between 1979 and 1984, Leventhal served first as the Aid Attorney General of the State put New York, in charge of rank Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau.[3] Elegance next was appointed as the Successor designate First Assistant Attorney General of Newborn York and Chief of the Suit Bureau.
Leventhal has argued two cases before the Supreme Court of honourableness United States, Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455 (1973, argued in 1972, as noted above) and Blum altogether. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886 (1984, argued in 1983).[11]
He remarried after his divorce.[7]