2021 Legal Legends of Color Honorees: ‘The Impact of a Legend is Endless’
Gwendolyn W. Lewis, writing for the Minorities in the Profession Committee on NCBarBlog, provides the perfect description of this year’s Legal Legends of Color Award recipients when she writes, “The impact of a Legend is endless . . . .”
“Impact breeds more impact,” Lewis begins. “For six years now, the Legal Legends of Color Awards have highlighted the lives and careers of some of the most impactful attorneys of color in our state. Their contributions, lives, careers, and stories have impacted not only the clients and communities they have served or still serve, but also the attorneys who have followed in their footsteps.”
The complete article and video interviews devoted to this year’s honorees are accessible here. Additional information regarding the Legal Legends of Color Awards, which have been presented annually by the NCBA Minorities in the Profession Committee since 2016, is accessible here.
The recipients of the 2021 Legal Legends of Color Awards are:
- Judge Elreta Melton Alexander (honored posthumously), first Black woman in North Carolina to be licensed and practice as a lawyer, to argue before its Supreme Court, and to be elected judge;
- Attorney Karen Bethea-Shields, first woman to be elected judge in Durham County and defense attorney who served as co-counsel in the landmark murder trial of Joan Little (cover photo of Karen Bethea-Shields provided by The News & Observer);
- Judge Wanda G. Bryant, N.C. Court of Appeals (March 2001-December 2020), and former chair of the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission;
- Professor James E. Coleman Jr., John S. Bradway Professor of the Practice of Law, Director of the Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility, and Co-Director of the Wrongful Convictions Clinic, Duke University School of Law; and
- Attorney Julian Pierce (honored posthumously), Lumbee civil rights activist and director of Lumbee River Legal Services who was murdered in 1988 while seeking election to a newly created Superior Court judgeship in Robeson County.
The 2021 Legal Legends of Color Awards were presented during the NCBA Annual Meeting on Friday, June 18, in a special virtual ceremony. The following five articles are provided in further recognition of the honorees and their contributions to the legal profession and the citizens of North Carolina.
To help provide context in instances where the living honorees discuss previous recipients of the Legal Legends of Color Award, we have listed the previous recipients below:
2020
Judge Yvonne Mims Evans
Senator Dan T. Blue Jr.
Attorney Anthony Fox
*Dean George R. Johnson Jr.
Attorney J. Kenneth Lee (posthumously)
2019
Professor Charles Daye
U.S. Attorney Janice McKenzie Cole
Legislator H. M. “Mickey” Michaux Jr.
Judge Sammie Chess
Attorney Julius Chambers (posthumously)
2018
Judge Shirley Fulton
Judge Paul Jones
Attorney Glenn Adams
Attorney Victor Boone
2017
Judge Albert Diaz
Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson
Professor Irving Joyner
2016
Chief Justice Henry E. Frye
Attorney James E. “Fergie” Ferguson II
Chief Justice Cheri Lynn Beasley
*Living honoree who is now deceased
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.