Higginbotham mural honors overlooked legend

By the age of 16, Wendella Fox knew she wanted to be a lawyer. What Fox didn’t know at that time was any real lawyers. Fox never met a lawyer while growing up in Baltimore.

Fox didn’t meet her first lawyer until she attended the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1970s. That lawyer, a federal judge named A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., became Fox’s instructor — plus an inspiration and mentor during her career.

“He gave me a recommendation for law school,” Penn Law School graduate Fox said.

Fox, whose legal career includes ranking posts with the city of Philadelphia and the federal government, was among the two dozen-plus who attended a ceremony last week in West Philadelphia that announced a planned mural honoring Higginbotham. The site for this 19 x 22-foot mural is above the entrance of a medical facility in the 4500 block of Chestnut Street.

The Trenton-born Higginbotham, who died in 1998, earned legendary stature nationally, and internationally as a revered jurist, scholar, and civil rights advocate. He helped write the constitution for post-apartheid South Africa — considered the most progressive constitution in the world for its provisions on social justice and human rights.

Higginbotham was the first African-American federal trial court judge in Pennsylvania (1964) and the fifth Black federal appeals court judge in the nation (1977). He taught at seven law schools, including University of Penn, Harvard and Yale, the law school where he graduated in 1952.

As a scholar/historian, Higginbotham wrote two award-winning books plus over 60 articles for law and academic journals. Those two books meticulously documented the centrality of racism in American law. Such documentation strongly rebuts conservatives who claim racism exerts little influence on American law.

Higginbotham is relevant “for our times,” University of Penn Law School Board of Advisors Chair Osagie Imasogie said during the mural ceremony.

Despite Higginbotham’s impressive accomplishments, his legacy is often overlooked in Philadelphia, the city he called home for decades of his life.

This dearth of local recognition is what motivated local journalist/publisher Larry Platt to secure support for a Higginbotham mural from Mural Arts Philadelphia, the United States’ largest public art program.

“He is a giant in the legal community. But he’s lost in the general memory of Philadelphia,” Platt said at that ceremony. “We can’t forget his importance. He stood for expanding constitutional rights not diminishing rights like the current Supreme Court.”

Shawn Theodore, the artist selected to create the Higginbotham mural, admitted he knew nothing about the jurist/scholar.

“When I did the research, I found so many wonderful things,” Theodore, an African American, said about the mural that is scheduled for competition in October. “I’m honored as an artist to translate his life.”

A relative of Higginbotham, law professor F. Michael Higginbotham, emphasized an impressive character trait of the late jurist.

“What made Leon special was his compassion. He cared about the poor, the disposed, the voiceless and the hopeless,” Higginbotham, a University of Baltimore School of Law professor, said during the ceremony. “My hope is this mural will allow more people to learn about him and the values he embraced.”

Rising from humble working-class beginnings, Higginbotham “never forgot his roots” stated one of the scores of tributes written about Higginbotham.

One of Higginbotham’s most widely known works was his 1991 “Open Letter” to then newly installed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Higginbotham urged Thomas to continue the works of great Black lawyers who broke barriers that, for example, enabled Thomas, an African American, to attend the Yale Law School and marry a white woman — an act once outlawed in many states including Virginia where the Thomases live.

Thomas’ aggressively anti-Black stances on the Supreme Court have vindicated Higginbotham’s critique that sparked some criticism at the time.