Robinson, Spottswood III (1916–1998)

A 1939 graduate of Howard Law School, Robinson was a prominent civil rights attorney in Virginia most known for arguing one of the five Brown v. Board of Education 1954 cases. Out of college he joined the Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Virginia and developed expertise in constitutional law and 14th amendment law. He was dean of Howard Law school from 1960 to 1963, when he was named a judge of the US District Court in D.C. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson named him to the US Court of Appeals in D.C., of which he became chief judge in 1981, the first African American to hold the post.