Resource: Henry Hampton Collection: Interview of Hon. Robert Lee Carter

By: Robert Lee Carter, Henry Hampton Collection

November 5, 1985

Henry Hampton Collection: Washington University in St. Louis

This interview was done for Henry Hampton's Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). The Hon. Robert L. Carter began working as legal counsel to the NAACP in 1944. During the 1950s Carter emerged as one of the NAACP's leaders in arguing that the separate-but-equal doctrine was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. At the same time, the NAACP continued to argue that the creation of separate facilities resulted in inequality and the only remedy was integration. Carter used this reasoning in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the first of the five cases known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education. Carter is most famous for the litigation of Brown v. Board of Education and NAACP v. Alabama. Carter was appointed to U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York in 1972.

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