Parker Award Presentation Remarks
Article Date: Saturday, June 23, 2007
Written By: Russell Rawlings
Presentation remarks of NCBA Immediate Past-President Mike Colombo at the 2007 NCBA Annual Meeting.
The Judge John J. Parker Memorial Award is the highest award given by the North Carolina Bar Association. “The purpose of this award is to honor the memory and the accomplishments of Judge Parker and to encourage the emulation of his deep devotion and enduring contribution to the law and to the administration of justice, by recognizing conspicuous service by members of the Bar of this State to the cause of jurisprudence in North Carolina.”
The late Judge John Johnston Parker was for 50 years a member of the Bar in North Carolina, for 44 years a member of the North Carolina Bar Association, for 32 years a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and for 27 years Chief Judge of that Court. Quite notably, he served as one of the two American judges in Nuremberg following World War, II. In these and other capacities, he rendered distinguished service to his profession, his state, and his nation. The resolution creating the award describes him as “a profound and eloquent advocate of the improvement of the law, the administration of justice, and the legal profession in North Carolina and the United States.”
This award is not given every year. It is given only when doing so will honor the memory and accomplishments of Judge Parker and the purpose of the award as set forth in the resolution adopted by the Board of Governors in 1959. Past recipients, listed in materials at your seats, include Robinson Everett, Norman Wiggins, Julius Chambers, and Senator Sam Ervin. It is my privilege to add our honoree to this distinguished list.
Former Chief Justice Henry E. Frye was born on a tobacco farm in Richmond County, graduated with honors from Mineral Springs High School in Ellerbe, and graduated with the highest honors from North Carolina A&T State University. He served in the United States Air Force in Japan and Korea and was discharged honorably with the rank of captain.
Justice Frye has overcome obstacles his whole life which are inconceivable to many of us. Upon his discharge from the Air Force and despite having graduated with honors from high school and college, he was required to take a literacy test and then denied the right to vote in Richmond County in 1956. He became the first African American to complete a full law degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with honors. He was the first African American elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in the 20th Century where he served 12 years in the House followed by 2 years in the Senate. He was the first African American to serve on the North Carolina Supreme Court and the first African American to serve as its Chief Justice. Since January of 2001, Justice Frye has practiced law in Greensboro with the law firm of Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard.
Despite these many professional accomplishments, it is the breadth of Justice Frye’s leadership and service which distinguish him from the crowd. He is past chair of the American Judicature Society, having received its Justice award in 2006. He is a founding member of Leadership North Carolina. He has received a Citation for Distinguished Public Service from North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry and Outstanding Alumnus Awards from his law school and undergraduate alma maters. He is a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Providence Baptist Church in Greensboro.
Throughout his career, Chief Justice Frye has proven his exceptional character and advanced the cause of race relations by achieving solutions through example and leadership. While practicing law in Greensboro before his career of public service, he was instrumental in calming racial tensions on the North Carolina A & T and UNC-Greensboro campuses. In the face of a boycott of the North Carolina Bar Association Annual Meeting in South Carolina in the year 2000 when he was Chief Justice, he made a daytrip to Myrtle Beach to swear in North Carolina Bar Association President Jim Maxwell, returning home to North Carolina Saturday evening after the installation. To me, this is an outstanding example of his ability to quietly balance personal relationships, professional responsibilities and causes of importance to him.
Upon receiving the highest honor of our YLD, the Liberty Bell Award, on Law Day in 2004, Justice Frye commented about the progress we have made as a nation since the U.S. Supreme Court made “separate but equal” famous in Plessy v. Ferguson. He indeed has been a positive contributor to this progress and to the rule of law through quiet action, rather than controversy and publicity. Justice Frye concluded his Law Day remarks by encouraging us all to work together to make our state live up to its, motto, “To be rather than to seem,” something Justice Frye has done throughout his life.
It is therefore my privilege, in honor of the memory of Judge John J. Parker, to present this award to Chief Justice Henry E. Frye.