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Prior Honorees – 2016

Prior Legal Legends of Color Award Honorees – 2016

To pin down one reason for their impact on the profession is a challenge. Many of the honorees were firsts in the paths they chartered. They impacted the judiciary, the advancement of the civil rights movement, the legal academy, increased access to justice for North Carolinians, and served in local, state and federal government. Many have benefited from their efforts, legal acumen and lifelong contributions to the profession and its members.

Former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley

Cheri Beasley is a partner with McGuireWoods in Raleigh. She was the first African American woman to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina and the second African American woman to have served on the Supreme Court. Her legal career began in 1994 when she served as the Assistant Public Defender for the Twelfth Judicial District in Cumberland County. Beasley served as District Court judge in Cumberland County for 10 years. She was elected to the N.C. Court of Appeals in 2008. In 2012, she was appointed to the Supreme Court, and she was elected to an eight-year term in 2014. In 2019, Beasley was appointed chief justice by Gov. Roy Cooper. From 2015-16, Beasley served as Vice President on the NCBA Board of Governors and as a member of the North Carolina Bar Foundation Board of Directors. She was named an inaugural Legal Legends of Color honoree by the NCBA Minorities in the Profession Committee in 2016, and in 2021 received the Liberty Bell Award, presented annually by the Young Lawyers Division at Law Day, and the NCBA Citizen Lawyer Award. Beasley received a Master of Laws in judicial studies from Duke University School of Law and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from The University of Tennessee College of Law. She graduated from Rutgers University/Douglass College with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and economics. She also completed a Summer Program in Law at the University of Oxford.

Former Chief Justice Henry Frye

Henry E. Frye was the first African American associate justice and chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by Governor Jim Hunt in 1983, and elected to eight-year terms in 1984 and 1992. He was appointed chief justice by Gov. Hunt in 1999 and served through 2000. He completed his career with Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard in Greensboro. Frye graduated with honors from North Carolina A&T State University and reached the rank of captain in the United States Air Force. In 1959 he became the first Black student to complete all three years of law school and graduate from the UNC School of Law, and in 1968 he became the state’s first Black legislator elected in the 20th century. Frye has received alumni awards from both alma maters as well as honorary doctorates of law from Shaw University, Fayetteville State University, Livingston College and N.C. A&T. In 2007 he became the 30th recipient of the John J. Parker Award, considered the highest honor awarded by the NCBA, and in 2004 received the Liberty Bell Award, presented annually by the Young Lawyers Division at Law Day. Henry Frye and his wife, Shirley, were honored as the 2006 recipients of the American Judicature Society’s highest honor, the Justice Award. The award recognized their outstanding contributions to improving the administration of justice on the national level.

Civil Rights Attorney James E. Ferguson II

James E. (Fergie) Ferguson II is a founding partner of the firm Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Gresham and Sumter, P.A., and has served as president of the firm since 1984. He has provided volunteer leadership as chair or president of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, the N.C. Advocates for Justice and the N.C. Association of Black Lawyers. The NCBA Criminal Justice Section honored him as the 2012 recipient of the Wade Smith Award, presented annually to an exemplary defense attorney in concert with the Peter Gilchrist Award, which is presented to a prosecutor. In 2015 the Litigation Section honored Ferguson as the recipient of its Advocate’s Award. Ferguson has held teaching positions at Harvard Law School and North Carolina Central University School of Law, served as a Scholar in Residence at Santa Clara Law School, and was recognized as an Honorary Fellow by the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, having been inducted in 1987. He co-founded South Africa’s first Trial Advocacy Program, and has taught trial advocacy in London, Cambridge and Stratford-on-Avon, England, as well as throughout the United States, including the first advanced trial advocacy program offered in the United States through the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

Legal Legends of Color Honorees

  • 2022 Honorees – Judge Ola M. Lewis (posthumously), Attorney Arlinda F. Locklear, Attorney Margaret Dudley, Attorney Georgia Jacquez Lewis
  • 2021 Honorees – Judge Elreta Melton Alexander (posthumously), Attorney Karen Bethea-Shields, Judge Wanda G. Bryant, Professor James E. Coleman, Jr., Attorney Julian Pierce (posthumously)
  • 2020 Honorees – Judge Yvonne Mims Evans, Attorney Anthony Fox, Attorney J. Kenneth Lee* (posthumously), Senator Dan T. Blue, Jr., Professor George R. Johnson, Jr.
  • 2019 Honorees – Professor Charles Daye, Former U.S. Attorney Janice McKenzie Cole, Former Legislator H. M. “Mickey” Michaux Jr., Judge Sammie Chess, Attorney Julius Chambers (posthumously)
  • 2018 Honorees – Judge Shirley Fulton, Judge Paul Jones, Attorney Glenn Adams, Attorney Victor Boone
  • 2017 Honorees – Judge Albert Diaz, Former Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson, Professor Irving Joyner
  • 2016 Honorees – Chief Justice Cheri Lynn Beasley, Former Chief Justice Henry E. Frye, Attorney James E. “Fergie” Ferguson II