Forever Honored: U.S. Postal Service Dedicates Stamp to Constance Baker Motley ’46
The pathbreaking civil rights lawyer, politician, and judge, and the second Black woman to graduate from Columbia Law, is the 47th honoree in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage stamp series.
Former colleagues and clerks of Constance Baker Motley ’46 joined her relatives and members of the public to celebrate the pioneering civil rights lawyer and a U.S. Postal Service stamp created in her honor.
The dedication ceremony, held at the Constance Baker Motley Recreation Center in New York City on January 31, included remarks from government officials, Motley’s niece, and legal leaders, including Gillian Lester, Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law. The speakers shared personal anecdotes and details about Motley and her impact on society, the legal profession, and U.S. history.
“As a legal educator, I can tell you that her example continues to burn very, very brightly in the hearts and minds of future lawyers,” said Lester. “When our students see her portrait on our walls, they’re reminded that although they are studying the law of their time … they, too, can shape the law, not as it is when they learn it, but how it ought to be.”
Motley used her legal training to effect change throughout her career. A singular figure in the Civil Rights Movement and an integral member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (now called the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF), Motley co-wrote the briefs for Brown v. Board of Education and spearheaded the 1960s court cases that desegregated the University of Georgia and the University of Mississippi. As a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, she helped establish a precedent that judges should not be disqualified from hearing a case on the basis of their race or sex alone.
Motley was the second Black woman to graduate from Columbia Law and the first Black woman to be elected a New York state senator and Manhattan borough president; to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court; and to serve as a federal judge. Her Forever stamp is the 47th in the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage stamp series; actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson 1923 was honored in 2004 with the 24th stamp in the series.
Watch the full dedication ceremony. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.