There When We Needed Him: Wiley Austin Branton
There When We Needed Him
Wiley Austin Branton, Civil Rights Warrior
by Judith KilpatrickUniversity of Arkansas Press 2007
"Wiley Branton spent his life working for justice. He represented the best of his profession and his country. There When We Needed Him is a fitting tribute to a great man and dear friend, and an important contribution to the writing on the Civil Rights Movement."
- Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Freres & Co. LLC
"Arkansas and America are better places because of what Wiley did."
- Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said of Wiley Austin Branton that he "devoted his entire life to fighting for his own people." There When We Needed Him is the story of that fight, which began with Branton's being one of the first black students at the University of Arkansas School of Law and took him to highest levels of business and government. From his private law practice in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Branton became, along with Marshall, counsel for the Little Rock Nine in their 1957 efforts to integrate Central High School. Under his leadership of the Atlanta-based Voter Education Project, more than 600,000 black voters were registered from 1962 to 1965. He later became executive secretary of President Lyndon Johnson's Council on Equal Opportunity and special assistant to Attorneys General Nicholas Katzenbach and Ramsey Clark. He provided leadership to the United Planning Organization, the Alliance for Labor Action, and the NAACP, and he was dean of Howard University Law School.
At Branton's funeral in 1988, former Arkansas Senator David Pryor described him as "quiet and unassuming . . . It is his humility and desire to always put the goals of the civil rights movement before self which probably accounts for the fact that [he] was not more famous than he was." The influence of this quiet and unassuming man continues to be felt decades later. There When We Needed Him is the story of this remarkable man and his turbulent times.
Purchase the book, There When We Needed Him: Wiley Austin Branton, Civil Rights Warrior, by Judith Kilpatrick
Warning:
You are using an older web browser that is not compatible with basic Web standards.
We recommend that you upgrade to one of the following browsers:
In an effort to create a more organized World Wide Web, the W3C has created many new Web layout standards. The key focus of their effort is to provide the best possible interoperability between the different browsing programs available.
In the days of the browser wars between Netscape and Microsoft, many hacks were propagated by the competing companies. However, today these hacks have done more to hurt the Web than to help the battling companies. By downloading and installing one of the programs listed above, the Web will be one step closer to eliminating these hacks and bugs.
Click here to go view current Web browser usage statistics.
Web Design by IFWORLD, Inc.
Web Site Design and Custom Programming in Northwest Arkansas
This site was designed and developed by the award-winning design staff of IFWORLD, Inc.
IFWORLD, Inc. is located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and has designed and developed successful, professional, award-winning websites for years. We specialize in custom interface design, Flash animation, and custom database programming. Visit our web design portfolio for more information.
