Chevene Bowers King

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Chevene Bowers King (October 12, 1923 – March 15, 1988) was an American attorney, civil rights leader in

Civil Rights Movement
, and political candidate.

Early years

Born in

US Navy
from 1943 to 1946.

Education

During his undergraduate years, King majored in industrial arts at

Nashville, Tennessee where received a B.A. degree in history in 1949. The following fall, he arrived at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio where he earned his law degree in 1952. During law school, he married Cleveland native Carol Roumaine Koiner Johnson in July 1951. After passing the Ohio bar in 1953, he returned to his native Albany, where he passed the Georgia bar in 1954. He was the only black lawyer practicing south of Atlanta in Georgia
.

National figure

As an attorney, civil rights leader, and pioneering political candidate, King spent the rest of his life championing the causes of justice, opportunity, and dignity for all Americans. Despite being based in Albany throughout his career, he emerged as a national figure.

In the early 1960s, he was a co-founder of the Albany Movement, the first major civil rights campaign for Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) after Montgomery. During the Movement, King (no relation) represented scores of demonstrators including MLK, Ralph Abernathy, Wyatt Tee Walker and Andrew Young. Despite the campaign being charactered as nonviolent in black and white, King faced violence first hand. In late July 1962, Dougherty County Sheriff

New York Times. The following August, in 1963, March on Washington organizer John Lewis, noted the incident again, taking to task the Kennedy Administration from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
: "...what did the federal government do when Albany's deputy sheriff beat attorney C. B. King and left him half dead? What did the federal government do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife (C.B. King's sister-in-law) of Slater King, and she lost her baby?"

In 1964, King became the first African-American since the late 19th-century to run from Georgia for the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1970, he was the first African-American ever to run for Governor of Georgia, after being drafted statewide by a delegation of African-Americans who were weighing the possible gubernatorial candidacy of Julian Bond, Leroy Johnson and King. Despite running a distant third behind Jimmy Carter and Carl Sanders, King's candidacy significantly boosted voter registration numbers among African-Americans statewide.

He devoted much of his time to

pro bono
law work for the poor and to volunteering in community projects for the needy. He was most noted as the lead attorney in a series of landmark lawsuits against longstanding discriminatory practices in the city and the state.

Legal cases

He won cases including

polling booths, voiding an election in which separate booths were used); Brown v. Culpepper, Foster v. Sparks, Thompson v. Sheppard, Pullum v. Greene, Broadway v. Culpepper, and Rabinowitz v. United States (prohibiting use of jury selection lists on which blacks were underrepresented and ending the exclusion of blacks on juries on the basis of race); and Johnson v. City of Albany
(ending discriminatory practices in local government employment).

Death and legacy

In 1988, King died in Tijuana, Mexico where he was being treated for prostate cancer following a three-year battle. In 2000, King became the namesake of a federal courthouse.[1]

Personal life

King is also the uncle of Baroness King of Bow, who was the second black female to be elected to British's House of Commons and holds a life peerage to the House of Lords.[2] He is also the uncle of renowned choreographer and ballet master Alonzo King of Alonzo King Lines Ballet.

Portrayal in the Media

King's life was dramatised by David Morley (writer) and broadcast by the BBC [3]

References

  1. ^ "U.S. Representative John Lewis (Ga.-D) and Other Civil Rights Vets to help Dedicate 1st U.S. Courthouse named for a Black Man in former Jim Crow South". ExodusNews.com. October 24, 2002. Archived from the original on February 7, 2005.
  2. ^ "BBC Radio 4 Extra - My Family's Fight for Civil Rights".
  3. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Drama, the Trials of CB King".

Further reading

External links

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