Norton to Receive Pillar of Justice Legacy Award, Thursday

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will receive the Pillar of Justice Legacy Award at the 2014 A. Leon Higginbotham Corporate Leadership Award Dinner in New York City on Thursday, June 26, 2014. The dinner is part of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law's 2014 A. Leon Higginbotham Corporate Leadership Award events on June 25 and 26, which will commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The theme of this year's events is "Lighting the Path Toward Justice."

This award, established in 2000, is named in honor of Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., who was on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit until he retired to engage in scholarship and civil rights work. Norton served as Higginbotham's first law clerk after graduating from Yale Law School. "It is a special honor indeed to receive this award, named in honor of Judge Higginbotham, a great mentor to me, one of the country's most distinguished judges and an exceptionally talented lawyer and scholar," Norton said.

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, whose major job discrimination provision Norton enforced as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As a student, the Congresswoman worked with the Student for Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to help organize the 1964 Freedom Summer and was on the staff of the 1963 March on Washington. As a young lawyer she helped write the brief for the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party that challenged the segregated Mississippi delegation to the 1964 Democratic Convention; and she ran the lobbying challenge to the traditional Mississippi delegation.