What:

The Post Office at 2505 Derita Ave. will officially be dedicated as Julius L. Chambers Civil Rights Memorial Post Office.

Who:

Derrick Chambers, son of Julius Chambers

Attorney James E. Ferguson II, Founding Partner and Friend
Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Gresham & Sumter, P.A.

Attorney General Josh Stein, Family Member of Founding Partner
Ferguson, Stein, Chambers, Gresham & Sumter, P.A.

Kelly Alexander, Jr., NC House of Representatives 107th District

U.S Representative Alma S. Adams, Ph.D (NC-12th District)

Justin Henderson, Charlotte Postmaster

When:

Thursday, February 18, 2021, 10:00 a.m. (virtual dedication ceremony)

Where:

The virtual event will be hosted via Zoom. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Background:

Born in Mount Gilead, North Carolina in 1936, Julius LeVonne Chambers became one of the most important civil rights lawyers in our nation’s history, litigating numerous precedent-setting cases in voting rights, education, employment discrimination, and public accommodations. He was an inspirational mentor to hundreds of lawyers.

After graduating from high school in 1954, Chambers attended North Carolina Central University. He was student body president and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history. He earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Michigan then attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1959, where he became the first African American to be editor-in-chief of the law review at a predominantly white law school. Chambers graduated first in his law school class of 100 students and went on to earn his LL.M. from Columbia University Law School.

Following law school, Chambers was selected by Thurgood Marshall for an internship with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He then returned to North Carolina and opened a civil rights law firm in Charlotte, which became the first integrated law office in North Carolina. In a short time, the firm was working on 35 school desegregation suits and 20 cases regarding race discrimination in public accommodations. Among with partners James E. Ferguson II and Adam Stein, the firm won numerous groundbreaking civil rights victories in the U.S. Supreme Court, Including Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, in which the Court authorized the use of bussing to achieve school integration; Griggs v. Duke Power and Albemarle Paper Co. v Moody, which expanded the law of employment discrimination to prohibit disparate racial impacts of racially  neutral policies; and Thornburg v. Gingles, which determined that it is not necessary to prove intentional discrimination in voting rights cases.

Undeterred by various acts of destruction to his car, home and office, he and his growing law firm continued to bring and win major cases that impacted civil rights nationally.

Chambers left private practice in 1984 to become the third Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which he led for the next nine years, defending the legal gains of the civil rights movement against challenges from an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. In 1993 left LDF to become Chancellor of his alma mater, North Carolina Central University. He left Central in 2001 to return to private practice and to become the founding Executive Director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights at his other alma mater, UNC Law School. Chambers led the UNC Center until retiring in 2010. He passed away August 2, 2013.

He was committed to passing on his tireless dedication to social justice, racial equality, and community engagement to succeeding generations of civil rights lawyers. He used to ask each day, “What great things are you working on?

On December 3, 2020, President Donald Trump signed into law designating the Post Office at 2505 Derita Avenue in Charlotte as the Julius L. Chambers Civil Rights Memorial Post Office. Today, Thursday, February 18, 2021, U.S. Postal Service is honored to dedicate this Post Office in honor of Julius L. Chambers

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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