Advisory Committee Jill Evans, Samford University Cumberland School of Law Kenneth Gains, University of South Carolina School of Law Darlene Goring, Louisiana State University Paul M. Herbert Law Center Shenequa Grey, Southern University Law Center Tamara Lawson, St. Thomas School of Law
FOREWORD
Written by The Honorable Chief Justice U.W. Clemon
In 1990,
U. W. Clemon was nominated by Former President Jimmy Carter to serve
as a United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama.
Clemon's nomination to the federal bench was highly controversial
and widely publicized. Despite some opposition, he received the
unanimous vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate.
Clemon's became Alabama's first black federal judge.
In 1999,Judge Clemon became the Chief Judge of the Northern District
of Alabama, which consists of eleven district judges, six magistrates'
judges, and five bankruptcy judges.
Judge Clemon is the recipient of
numerous awards and recognitions. The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, in 1980, honored him with its "Drum Major Award."
Six years later, the National Bar Association ("NBA")
bestowed on him its highest honor: The C. Francis Stradford Award.
The NBA's Judicial Council, consisting of black judges of the United
States, gave him its William H. Hastie Award for "exceptional
legal scholarship" in 1987. In 1998, the National Association
for Affirmative Action bestowed on him the Rosa Parks Award.In April of 1999, Columbia University Law School
honored Judge Clemon with its coveted Paul Robeson Award.
