ALLEN E. BROUSSARD

Allen E. Broussard began life as a social activist who was instrumental in getting the first African-Americans hired as a high-school teacher and police officer in San Francisco, and was instrumental in securing union jobs for those individuals previously denied access to union positions. These experiences inspired Justice Broussard to seek a career in the law, and in 1950, he enrolled at Boalt Hall as one of three African-Americans in a class of 106. After graduation, Justice Broussard became a research attorney for Raymond Peters, presiding judge of the First Appellate District and was the first African-American to hold that position in the district. Through his work with the East Bay Democratic Club and Oakland Men of Tomorrow, Justice Broussard was part of the effort to build a strong political base in the East Bay. These organizations were vehicles through which African-Americans identified and selected their own candidates; and by 1958, members of these East Bay organizations chaired the campaigns of all of the Democratic candidates on the ticket in the Eighth Congressional District, winning all but one of the top statewide jobs.

Justice Broussard started his 10-year tenure on the California Supreme Court with Rose Bird as chief justice; and served as acting chief justice when Justice Bird left the Court in 1987. While on the Supreme Court, Justice Broussard wrote more majority opinions than any other member of the Court, including some of the Court's most sweeping opinions, such as the 1983 opinion which required proof of intent to kill in most death penalty cases, giving the Court the legal basis for overturning scores of death penalty verdicts. Retiring from the Court in 1991 to return to private practice, Justice Broussard became a partner at Coblentz, Cahen, McCable & Breyer, where he had an active practice in alternative dispute resolution, appellate review, and participated in the Complex Case Panel of the American Arbitration Association.

CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON

Charles Houston began his career as a high school teacher. While teaching, he became increasingly aware of the victimization blacks experienced with segregation in the public and private sectors. These concerns prompted him to enroll at Harvard Law School. After his first year, Houston was elected to the Harvard Law Review and discovered a legal mentor in the eminent professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter. In 1922, he received the bachelor of laws degree, cum laude. Houston decided to obtain his doctorate degree in juridical science under Frankfurter, who taught his student not only the finer points of constitutional law but also the need to incorporate the lessons of history, economics, and sociology into a comprehensive, legalistic world view. These teachings, in combination with his own growing awareness of the second-class citizenship forced on blacks, forged in Houston the conviction of a social activist and the strategic thinking of a lawyer who understood the power of law to effect social change.

In 1929, Houston was appointed vice-dean at the Howard University School of Law. Recognizing the need for blacks to understand thoroughly constitutional law with an eye toward dismantling the legal basis of segregation, and for black students to have higher education institutions on a par with those available only to whites, Houston set about reconstituting the law school. He shut down the night school, toughened admissions standards, improved the library and curriculum, and purged from the faculty those he believed were not tapping the intellectual potential of the next generation's black lawyers and leaders. Between 1935 and 1940, Houston served as special counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Near the end of his career, Houston became the first black to successfully represent the NAACP before the highest court in the land. He died in 1950.